


The Grand Tour

by JoonGloom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Sirius Black, Continental Europe in the mid 70s, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gay Remus Lupin, M/M, Peter is very much in the group but you kind of get wht he ends up betraying them, Post-Sirius Black's Prank on Severus Snape, Rating May Change, Road Trip!, Swearing, coming out to your friends, mild drug and alcohol use, world expansion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 61,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoonGloom/pseuds/JoonGloom
Summary: After Sirius's "prank" puts Remus and Snape's life in danger, Remus and Sirius's friendship is as strained as it's ever been. In an attempt to remedy the dark cloud that has settled over the Marauders, James suggests a summer trip to the continent. (Nothing like foreign wizarding communities, exciting foods, expansive art museums, and relaxed drug use policies to bring people closer together.)It becomes clear, however, that Remus has been holding back his fair share of secrets. And so has Sirius--even if he doesn't know it yet.
Relationships: James Potter & Lily Evans Potter, James/poor but harmless flirting skills employed on uninterested women, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 77
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, in order to deal with 2020, I've begun writing again for one of my first fandoms. This fic was very much inspired by the fact that my friend and I were supposed to go on a European train trip this summer but had to postpone because of... The Rona. A huge thank you to my buddies [boxofpigeons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofpigeons/pseuds/boxofpigeons) and [sunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlight/pseuds/sunlight) for beta-ing this for forever!
> 
> Also JKR is transphobic and a generally terrible person. Read more of my thoughts [here.](https://infidelius-charm.tumblr.com/post/636192375962746880/on-jkr-and-fanworks) Happy Reading!

**I**

**INTRODUCTION**

Sirius was only half-listening to James as he shoved the few summer-friendly items of clothing he had into his bag.

“…and we’ve got to keep an eye on Wormy in France, or he’ll bleed the country dry of baguettes in a week. Oh, and we need to tell Moony to narrow down that list of muggle museums he wrote down, maybe to five? Yeah, five seems reasonable enough…” James rambled as he packed, un-packed, and re-packed his clothes into his bag. _I need to look extra fit if I’m going to have a chance with any continental girls,_ he had said.

A tour of the continent. All four of them. James, Sirius, Peter… and Remus.

~~~

It was something they all had inadvertently ended up discussing over breakfast one morning. Evans had just pointedly ignored another failed flirting attempt of James's as she sat down with Mary at the other end of the table. James had let out a tiny woeful groan and rested his chin in his hand.

“I thought that was charming, personally,” Sirius said around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “Keep that up and you might just end up wooing _me_ instead, Prongs.”

James kicked Sirius underneath the table, and Peter laughed.

Sirius laughed as well. “Just ease-up on Evans, mate,” he said. “She’s not going to be interested if you keep acting so desperate.”

“Well excuse me, but not all of us can just flip our hair and have throngs of ladies panting at our feet,” James said with a roll of his eyes as he stabbed at his potatoes.

“Come on now,” Sirius said pityingly, “you know you don’t have the face-shape for long hair anyway.”

Another kick from James, met with more laughter from Peter.

“Honestly mate,” Peter had piped up after his laughter had died down, “girls like Evans aren’t ever going to bother with guys like us. Just let it go.”

“Speak for yourself, mate,” James replied indignantly. “I’ll have you know I have a long-term plan in the works.”

Sirius snorted. “That’s a lie if I ever heard one. And since when have _you_ become the expert on women, Wormy?”

Peter, instead of dignifying Sirius's question with a direct response, sat up straighter and turned bright red. “I’m just saying, women prefer a more subtle, refined approach now that we’re older.” He raised his pointed nose up at Sirius, a haughty challenge for him to try and dispute him.

“Is that what Dorcas said to you after you tried eating her face off after the quidditch match last weekend?” Sirius asked.

Instantly, Peter deflated. “Shut up!”

James laughed and patted Peter on the back. “It wasn’t that bad, don’t worry.”

“What are you tormenting poor Wormtail about now?” Remus asked with a smile as he came walking over to them in the hall, several books in his hands and hair mussed from an apparently restless sleep.

Sirius noted with a pang of guilt that Remus chose to sit next to Peter, leaving him alone on one side of the table. James gave Sirius a quick pitying look before answering. “Pete was just explaining to us what women find attractive in a man.”

Remus smiled a little wider and let out a laugh. “Well I’m sure they appreciate confidence. That’ll work in your favor, Wormtail,” he said, opening up one of his books and continuing to read.

“ _Thank_ you, Moony,” Peter replied with newfound self-assurance, giving Sirius a look that said _See?_ before frowning a moment later. “Wait—”

“Maybe Wormtail’s right,” James said. “I mean, look at Moony—he’s the most ‘refined’ of us all, and he’s got more girls hanging around him than any of us put together.”

Remus choked on the tea he had only just taken a sip out of. “Excuse me?”

Peter chuckled and turned to face Remus. “Yeah, how do you do it, Remus? You’re mates with nearly every girl our year.”

It was true. While the divide between the boys and girls of their year seemed to progress like an ever-widening volcanic fissure, driven by ill-advised advances and grotesque flirtations, Remus had somehow been able to seamlessly tread between both sides, having remained as close to many of the girls in their class as he had been in first year. Where it seemed the boys were now doomed to be shot down immediately for even thinking of approaching a group of girls, Remus thrived in the perils of traversing the no man’s land between the divide.

And Sirius was more impressed than anything. He never had the same issue as so many of the other boys—girls mostly approached him now anyway, and he was always more than happy to oblige or politely decline their advances. It wasn’t as maddeningly baffling as it seemed to be for James or Peter who, rather than attempting different approaches to speaking to girls, only doubled down on foolish feats for attention.

Remus rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, it’s not a sport,” he said, “I don’t go around hunting them down to add to a collection.”

Sirius couldn’t help but smile. He thought it was so amusing when Remus used muggle phrases like ‘for God’s sake.’

“But what a collection it is,” James said, sporting a teasing smile.

Remus sighed and took another sip of his tea, slower this time. “I have nothing to offer that shouldn’t already be blatantly obvious to you.” He buried his head in his book again.

Peter groaned. “Well that’s it, then. The knowledge is lost forever.”

James chuckled. “Suppose we’ll have to go on some grand quest to find the secret, then.”

Sirius smiled. “Little early for the Grand Tour, don’t you think?”

They all laughed—even Remus, who gave a sensible chuckle into his tea as he took another sip, before turning back to their breakfasts.

A moment later, however, James looked up from his plate. “Actually, no one has any _pressing_ plans this summer, do they?” 

Sirius, who after five years had become acutely adept at predicting the mischievous cogs in James's brain, snorted. “Mate, we’re not going on the Tour. Least of all to find the secret to getting a shag.”

James waved his hand dismissively. “No forget about the girls, Pads, I think a trip might actually do us some good.” He could tell from the glint in James's eye that the cogs were now turning wildly. “Think about it: a few weeks on the continent. Doesn’t that sound—”

“Expensive?” Remus added, not looking up from his book.

“ _Exciting_?” James finished, looking between his friends at the table. 

Sirius glanced over at Remus. He still had his nose buried in his book, but his eyes weren’t moving.

Peter, however, looked ecstatic. “Well, I’ve always wanted to go to Paris…”

James gestured to Peter as he looked between Sirius and Remus. “Pete wants to go to Paris. Are you going to deprive him of that?”

Sirius turned his gaze down to his plate. “Kinda too spur of the moment, don’t you think?”

“We could stay in hostels along the way,” James said. “Make it real cheap. Wouldn’t have to have fixed dates or anything.” He looked over at Remus directly then. “…Moony? What do you say?”

Remus sighed, and finally looked up from his book. “Honestly James, it sounds fun, but I’m not sure Lyall would approve it.” He gave a shrug. “Maybe… I don’t know. Some other time.” He very pointedly did not look at Sirius before he returned to his book.

Sirius's stomach did a turn.

James sighed. “Well…don’t give in just yet—I bet we can figure out a way to make it work. We deserve a little bit of fun, eh?”

Remus only hummed in response.

~~~

Until the end of term, James's sole focus was finding a way to make this trip work. What wizard hostels they could stay at, what trains they could take, where they would be able to go in less than a month.

Sirius pretended to go along with James's excitement, nodding along when he mentioned this or that site in the south of France, or whatever coffeeshop in Amsterdam. He’d nod along and say “yeah, sounds great,” which only got James to focus harder on making the trip work because he knew Sirius was phoning it in.

Eventually, James pulled him over after dinner one night. “You’ve already apologized,” he’d said to Sirius in a hushed tone as the other Gryffindors ascended the steps to the dormitories. “He just needs time. We all just need to carry on until… you both can talk about it more.”

Sirius only nodded. He wasn’t sure how much time could ever fix what he had done. 

~~~

The first week after the “prank” was the worst week he had ever experienced at Hogwarts. Remus refused to even look at him. He’d come to the hospital wing to try and apologize only for James to turn him away. “I don’t think he’s up for it now, mate,” he’d said, looking more stern than he ever had before. 

James nearly screamed his ear off right after it had happened. _How could you be so stupid? So reckless? So inconsiderate?_

The worst part was that he didn’t really have an answer for it. 

He couldn’t put into words what possessed him to tell Snape to go follow Remus to the Willow that night. What he thought the best possible outcome of that would be. Since running away to the Potters’ during the holidays that year, nothing happened the way it was supposed to anymore. All his actions felt too callous or too irreverent. Sometimes it felt like he had forgotten how it felt to care at all. And so the prank wasn’t really an unpredictable act of malice so much as it was an inevitable act of apathetic cruelty.

Remus, having noticed his friend’s slow decline, had tried to reach out before all that happened. After the holiday break, he had always made time to talk with Sirius. Not about anything that had been bothering him, necessarily, but to offer his always calming presence, and clear head to listen. They’d talk about who really was better, the Stones or the Beatles (Sirius of course always advocating for the former), or whether David Bowie was actually a wizard (“Look at him, look at how he dresses! And how he dances!” “Sirius, sometimes people are just like that,”) and, on very rare occasions, Remus would listen to Sirius talk about his family. Only when they were completely alone, and Remus promised not to say anything. Those moments had been the highlight of the spring term for Sirius. 

And he had gone and ruined it all. 

Eventually Remus did let him come into the hospital wing to talk to him. It was the second morning after the prank, and Remus, though Madam Pomfrey had healed all the more pressing wounds, refused to head back to his dorm. Madam Pomfrey obliged. 

He had been the only one in the wing that morning, and he was sitting up in bed talking in quiet tones to James and Peter when Sirius entered. 

James and Peter looked to Remus, who gave them a small nod and must have told them it was ok to go, though Sirius couldn’t hear. James gave Sirius a sigh and a pat on the shoulder as he passed, while Peter’s eyes darted between Sirius and Remus as he shuffled along after James. 

They were alone. 

Sirius finally approached Remus. He had a new scar on his face that hadn’t been there two nights before, and his eyes were bloodshot (from crying or lack of sleep, Sirius couldn’t tell). There was a book at the foot of the bed that must have been brought by James or Peter, but it didn’t look like it had been touched. 

Remus didn’t look up at him. 

Sirius, after a moment of berating himself, ( _you fucked up, you’ve got to speak first,_ ) did just that. “I… I’m really sorry, Remus.” 

Remus huffed, and a bitter smile twisted at his lips. “Oh. Alright then. Glad you came by.”

“No, I—” Sirius stepped closer to the bed. “I mean it. It was stupid, and... I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.”

“Right,” Remus said, and finally looked up at him from the bed. “Tell me then, what exactly you _thought_ would happen?”

“Remus—”

“Did you think that this would be the one time a werewolf smelled a human and _wouldn’t_ react?”

“Snape was fine!” Sirius blurted out, sounding more indignant than he had meant it to. “I told James in time to stop anything from happening!”

“Fuck that, Sirius!” Remus yelled back at him. “I’m not talking about Snape, I’m talking about _me!_ ”

Sirius had never heard Remus bellow like that before. His mouth snapped shut. 

“What would have happened to _me_ if I had gotten too close??” Remus continued, his eyes starting to glisten in anger. “If I had gotten too close, if Dumbledore couldn’t convince Snape to keep quiet…” he shook his head, trying to banish the thought from his mind. “What if I had hurt him? They could have just… put me down, and it would be well within their right to do so.” Tears began to fall in earnest from Remus's reddened eyes, and he tore his gaze away from Sirius as he wiped quickly at them with his sleeve. “Sirius. My father is coming to speak to Dumbledore. He doesn’t think I should be at Hogwarts anymore.” 

The words hit Sirius like a knife in his chest. “...What?” He moved closer to the bed. “That’s insane, he can’t just take you out now!”

“Is it really, though?” Remus asked, wiping at his eyes again. “If this happened once, who’s to say it wouldn’t happen again?”

“I’ll talk to him,” Sirius blurted out. “I will. I’ll tell him it was my fault—fuck, it was! You didn’t do anything wrong! _I_ should be the one getting kicked out!” 

“I don’t want to hear you ‘sacrifice’ yourself like that, Sirius, it won’t help anything.” Remus let out a sigh, more weary sounding than any sixteen year-old had the right to be. “I know you weren’t thinking, and that’s the problem. You never think about how anything you do affects other people. I was stupid to think you’d be able to see otherwise with someone…” he shook his head again. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to speak to you anymore. Please leave.”

Sirius felt the knife in his chest twist, and he opened his mouth to try and protest again but Remus had turned his back to him in the hospital wing cot. He needed to tell him again, he needed to tell him how acutely he felt the horrible pain in his chest, and so he reached out and touched Remus on the shoulder. “Remus—”

But Remus jerked his shoulder out of his grip, and sat up in bed once more, eyes redder and so full of a fire that Sirius had never seen the likes of before, and he screamed. _“LEAVE!”_

Sirius jolted away and stepped back from Remus's bed immediately, his scream still echoing off the stone floors of the hospital wing. Remus resolutely held his furious gaze with Sirius, as if he didn’t want him to forget the sight of it. 

With a meek nod, and something bubbling up from his chest, Sirius turned and hastily walked out of the hospital wing. When he opened the door he was greeted by James and Peter’s stunned faces, having both been caught listening in and unwitting witnesses to Remus's fury. James tried to say something to Sirius, but he pushed past him, and quickly ran back to the Gryffindor dormitories. 

~~~

“...Padfoot? _Pads_. Sirius?”

James's attempts at getting his attention finally got through Sirius's fog of memories, and he put down the pair of jeans he had been stuffing into his bag to turn and answer him. “Yeah? What?”

James sighed, and gave Sirius a knowing look. “What was I just talking about?”

Sirius paused, looking across the room at James's bedpost. “Um… the fact that Evans is going to like you so much more after you come back from Europe knowing how to snog properly?”

James pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “That… was a really good guess. But I know you weren’t listening.” He pointed to the chair at the desk in his bedroom. “Sit.” 

Sirius sighed but shuffled over to the desk chair and sat down obediently. He folded his arms across his chest and leveled James with an impassive expression. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Too bad,” James said, sitting across from him on the large framed bed. “You have to.”

“Why?”

“Because one—I said so, and two—moping isn’t going to get Moony to forgive you any quicker.” James's brow furrowed in concern. “You’ve both been getting on a lot better now, what’s got you so riled up?”

Sirius huffed. “We may be fine in a _group_ , but I can still tell he hates me too much to ever be alone with me.” He shook his head. “What makes you think that us just… running around in Europe together will suddenly make us be alright again?”

“Sirius, I doubt Remus has the capacity to hate just about anyone,” James said, patiently, as if he were explaining something incredibly obvious to a child. “And he definitely doesn’t hate you.”

Sirius spread his hands in exasperation. “Of course he does! I would hate me if I were him.”

“Well he’s _mad_ at you, that’s for sure,” James conceded, “but that’s different than him _hating_ you. Look,” he said, leaning back on one elbow on the bed, “if he hated you he wouldn’t have finally agreed to go on the trip with us at all. He misses you.”

Sirius made an unconvinced sounding grunt and leaned back in the desk chair. But if he was being honest with himself, just the thought of James being right made his stomach jump.

~~~

Remus's father came to Dumbledore’s office the day after the incident in the hospital wing. 

Remus had begun to pack his clothes into his trunk in the morning before breakfast. And so, instead of heading down to the Great Hall with James and Peter, Sirius ran to Dumbledore’s office himself. 

Of course, panting and already sweating from running across the castle, Sirius realized he had no idea what the password was when he came upon the gargoyle guarding the entrance. Cursing under his breath and preparing to kick the statue in frustration, he was surprised when it moved, unbidden by him, to expose the spiral staircase. Not willing to question his luck, Sirius bolted in and raced up the stairs. 

He was about to knock on the great oak doors, but before he could, a soft, yet commanding voice invited him in. “Come in,” Dumbledore called, and the doors opened before him. 

Sirius charged in determinedly. “Professor, Remus shouldn’t— ” but he was halted in his steps at the sight of a lanky man with pepper-grey hair, standing before Dumbledore’s desk in a simple wool vest, a button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up, and familiar looking grey-blue eyes hiding behind small round glasses. Lyall Lupin. 

Sirius had only seen the man at King’s Cross a handful of times. Most of what he knew about him came from Remus, which consisted mainly of passing comments like “got a parcel from my mum and dad.” He knew he worked at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which, Sirius was certain, was less than ideal for the both of them. Sirius never got the impression Lyall was as keen on meeting Remus's friends as the Potters were to meet James's. He remembered, in fact, that Remus mentioned Lyall “having a fit” when Remus told him his friends had figured out the reason behind his prolonged absences. 

“Um… hi,” Sirius said dumbly, as he made eye-contact with Lyall. 

Lyall himself looked incredibly confused to see him in the office. “Hello… Mr. Black, correct?” he asked, peering over his glasses. 

Sirius nodded, and looked to Dumbledore to remedy the awkward situation. 

Dumbledore ( _the bastard,_ Sirius thought) smiled. “I believe Mr. Black has something he would like to say to you, Mr. Lupin.” 

Sirius resisted rolling his eyes at the old wizard, and took a deep breath before he turned to Lyall. “Mr. Lupin, you can’t take Remus out of school. It was my fault anything happened.”

Lyall looked even more startled at that, but he gave a kind (somewhat condescending) smile. “That’s… admirable of you, but Remus's... _condition_ , its—”

“I was the one who told the other student to follow Remus to the Willow.”

The look on Lyall’s face went quickly from one of bewilderment to an impassive coldness “...I see.”

Sirius pushed past the twisting feeling in his stomach as he told both Lyall and Dumbledore everything that had happened. How he purposefully lured Snape over to the shack as a “prank,” and how, if it wasn’t for James, things would have turned out so much worse than they already were. 

Dumbledore listened to his story very patiently, nodding here and there like he already knew the details of everything. (Somehow, he probably did.) Sirius forced himself to look directly at Lyall, though, whose cold grey eyes were slowly boring a hole directly through his head. 

“...I’m sorry,” Sirius finished with, trying to straighten up under Lyall’s gaze. “It was… the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. But Remus isn’t the one who should be punished. It should be me.”

When he finished, Dumbledore gave a small smile. “Thank you very much, Mr. Black. I believe that’s something to take into account when discussing Remus's future plans at Hogwarts.” He gestured to the doors. “Would you mind waiting outside for a moment?”

Sirius nodded, and glanced back over to Lyall, who was leveling him with a glare that Sirius thought could rival even Walburga Black’s. He turned and walked back out of the office, closing the oak doors behind him and not eager to listen in on whatever happened next. 

~~~ 

Getting kicked off the Quidditch team is what happened next. 

And detention for the rest of the term. 

And the angriest, most stern talking-to Sirius had ever received from McGonagall

But, miraculously, he wasn’t expelled. 

Later that evening, after dinner, Remus had come to the common room with something close to a smile on his face as he told them he was going to stay. 

James and Peter had whooped and cheered, attacking Remus with enthusiastic embraces, and Remus had accepted it all with a mixture of happiness and what Sirius thought looked like an exhausted relief. 

Sirius hung back from the group, smiling, but not wanting to intrude. 

When they all settled down, Remus looked over to him. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” 

Sirius nodded and, feeling James's sympathetic look hot on his back, followed Remus up to the sleeping quarters. 

Remus wasted no time in turning around to address him. “You spoke to my father today.”

Sirius wasn’t expecting such a rapid start to the conversation, so he blinked a few times before nodding. “Yeah. I uh… I went to talk to Dumbledore and he was… well. Yeah.”

_Eloquent_ , Sirius chided himself. 

Remus nodded. “He’s not thrilled with you at the moment, to say the least,” Remus said, a small smile tugging at his lips, “but… thank you.”

Sirius nodded, his heart pounding in his chest. “Yeah. Of course.”

Remus nodded, and silence fell between them again. 

Sirius cleared his throat. “So… are we… ?”

Remus frowned. “Are we…?” he repeated.

“Are we good?” Sirius finished. “Now. Are we ok?”

Now it was Remus's turn to blink at him. “Sirius… no.”

“What??” Sirius blurted. “How?? I got kicked off the Quidditch team! I have detention for the rest of term—what more do I have to do to make you see that I’m sorry?” 

Remus looked at him as if he had just slapped him. “Well, _meaning_ it, for one thing!”

“I do!” Sirius sputtered. “I _am_! I just said that!”

“No, you didn’t! God, Sirius,” Remus said, and took a deep breath. “There’s not just a list of self-sacrifice you can check off to make everything better.”

Sirius hadn’t seen such a tired and sad look on Remus's face in a long time. He looked beyond tears now. Just too tired and resigned to put up much of a fight for anything.

Remus put a hand on Sirius's shoulder. “I’m very grateful you spoke to my father. Really, I am,” he said, and somehow it hurt Sirius to feel like Remus was attempting to comfort _him_ now. “But… I’m sorry. You still clearly don’t understand what you did. Until then...it's going to take some time for all this to get better.” He removed his hand from Sirius's shoulder. “I’m sorry I can’t make it easier for you.” And then he stepped around Sirius to walk back down the steps to the common room, leaving Sirius alone, again. 

~~~ 

“I don’t know why he’d miss me,” Sirius said, crossing his arms. “I was a complete git to him.”

“Well, yeah,” James conceded, sitting up a little on the bed. “But at least you know that now.”

Sirius grunted. 

James sighed. “I know you’ve been thinking about what to say to him all month. You’re gonna get a chance to set things right. And I know you will.”

Sirius shrugged, and looked down at his shoes. “...At least he’s coming.” 

James grinned. “Yeah, you’re welcome,” he said triumphantly. 

It made Sirius smile a bit. 

~~~

It had been no small feat getting Remus to agree to the trip. 

Ever since that morning in Dumbledore’s office, Lyall had owled Remus nearly every other day with long lists of precautions Remus was to follow in order to never have a repeat incident of the sort again, along with strongly worded pleas for him to reconsider at least coming home early this term. Remus wrote back frequently at first, trying to assuage his father’s worry and advocate for himself. But Lyall’s letters didn’t cease in their frequency, and eventually Remus gave up responding altogether. 

James, Sirius, and Peter never got the full details of what was said in the letters, but they did notice that “got a parcel from my mum and dad” had quickly changed to “My father wrote me again,” and then a resigned, bitter, “Another one from Lyall today.” 

And so when James got the ever-so persistent idea in his head that a summer tour of the continent would be best for them all, he had several obstacles to overcome if Remus was going to be allowed to join them.

“Say, Padfoot,” James said over dinner one evening not long after the fateful breakfast discussion had taken place, “Where would you go in Europe? If we were to go, that is.”

Sirius raised a brow at James, his forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to his mouth. “I don’t know, France?”

James nodded sagely. “France would be nice. I’d like to go to Belgium myself.”

Peter piped up, eager to contribute. “France for me too. Or maybe The Netherlands. Or Switzerland.”

“Those all sound great,” James said, nodding again. “All pretty close together, too, aren’t they?” He chanced a glance at Remus, who once again had his eyes trained on a book. “I reckon we could probably do all those places in, what, three weeks time?”

Remus paused for a moment while turning his page, but then continued on.

Sirius looked back over to James, who now had a scheming smile on his face, and rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you idiots later,” he said, as he got up to leave for an evening detention.

Later that week, after Astronomy, which they all had together, James turned to Peter. “So, Wormtail, if we were to go to Europe, how would, say, the thirteenth of July through the third of August sound? I think we’d beat most of the rush of muggle tourists then.”

Peter grinned, not thinking twice about the odd dates, and replied “Yeah, that’d be great!”

James grinned back. “Excellent. Padfoot?”

“My schedule is exactly the same as yours.”

“Brilliant,” James replied, and glanced at Remus before smiling to himself. 

Remus narrowed his eyes and studied James. “...Sounds like you’ll all have fun,” he said. “I’m going to the library, I have to return something,” he muttered as he stuffed his things into his bag and hastily left the classroom. 

Peter frowned. “Should we not have talked about the trip in front of him?”

Sirius smacked his shoulder lightly. “The moon phases are right on the bloody wall, mate.”

Peter looked affronted for a moment before looking over at the wall. “So?” A moment of silence. “OH.”

In the common room, a few days later, James had the Daily Prophet open as he sat lounging in one of the large armchairs by the fire. “Hmm,” he hummed rather pointedly.

Remus, who was playing chess with Peter at a coffee table, looked over. “What?”

“Oh,” James said with a shrug, “Nothing much. Just says here that wizarding hostel prices are set to drop a bit this summer. Something about wanting to remedy a dip in tourism.”

Remus raised a brow.

Sirius, lounging on the couch, suddenly felt his heartbeat quicken. 

“Checkmate!” Peter chimed with a grin. 

Closer to the end of term, during breakfast again, James twirled his spoon in thought. “Padfoot, what’s the name of that big muggle museum in Paris?”

Sirius answered, not daring a glance at Remus. “The Louvre.”

“Right, right,” James said nodding his head. “How many paintings do you think they’ve got in there?”

“I don’t know, mate. A lot.”

“Somewhere around four-hundred and eighty thousand,” Peter said with the sort of cheeky smile of someone who had cheated on a test, and added proudly “But! None of them move.”

“Alright,” Remus said, putting down his fork a little forcefully. “You lot are not nearly as subtle as you think you are.”

James tilted his head as if he were confused, though a smile clearly tugged at his lips. “Whatever do you mean, Moony?”

Peter snorted, hardly hiding his grin. 

Remus rolled his eyes. “I’ll _talk_ to Lyall, alright?”

Peter and James cheered, and Sirius felt an uncomfortable mixture of dread and elation. 

~~~

Lyall had adamantly refused to consider the trip at first. 

It took an entire week of convincing on Remus's part, but the fact that the trip would 1) not interfere with the lunar cycle and put Remus or others in any danger, 2) that it would be budget friendly, and 3) that it would be entirely too cruel to barr Remus from going to see the museums and historical sights that he had read about all his life while his friends experienced them without him, finally got Lyall to give in. 

Once Lyall finally accepted the trip, he wrote to James directly, insisting he needed to see an itinerary. James, ever the good sport, happily obliged if it meant that Remus would be allowed to come with them. And through all this, Sirius felt a gnawing anxiousness at the pit of his stomach. 

Remus deserved to go on this trip. He deserved to travel to every place that he’d read about and dreamed of seeing, and to see them all with his friends. He deserved to relax and feel normal. And Sirius couldn’t help but feel he would ruin it all with his presence. 

“Sirius,” James said from the bed, once again cutting through Sirius's swirl of apprehension and guilt. “Everything’s going to be fine. He wants you to be there, I know he does.”

Sirius nodded, though it was merely to placate James. “Alright,” he said, speaking past the lump in his throat. “Alright.”

James nodded as well. “Good. Now, let’s get back to it,” he said, getting up from the bed. 

Sirius got up from the desk chair and went back over to his bag to re-fold the pair of jeans he had left half-stuffed into his bag. They were leaving for King’s Cross in the morning. 


	2. King’s Cross, Lyall, And France

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting the second chapter now because I know the intro was kind of short! This fic is almost done, btw. It has 60k+ words and nine chapters so far, but I'm hoping posting will help me finish it.
> 
> (Also yes I am AWARE that the Chunnel was only completed in 2003. England and France both agreed to a rail system in 1965 however, and I assume the wizard of world just finished theirs first because... they’re wizards. World building.)

**I**

**KING’S CROSS, LYALL, AND FRANCE**

“It’s too bloody hot.”

“You’re the one who wanted to wear jeans, Padfoot.”

“UHG.” Sirius set his bag down and shook out his arms. “I’m sweating through everything!”

James rolled his eyes and turned to Peter. “You’ll have to excuse the missus, she gets quite upset when her fashion sense is compromised.”

Peter cackled, making Sirius point at them both with an accompanying warning glare. “Shut up.”

James and Peter continued to laugh, but James shrugged. “Yes, dear.”

Sirius punched James firmly on the arm, but this did nothing to deter him from laughing.

Sirius, James and Peter were all waiting for Remus to arrive at the platform. James and Peter had both elected to wear more heat-wave friendly cut offs and short sleeve button-downs, which, despite not exactly meshing well with Sirius's proclivity for ripped jeans, a t-shirt, and his leather jacket, he was genuinely envying at the moment. He didn’t envy Peter’s choice of a baker’s boy hat, though. 

“Just take off the jacket,” James said. “I don’t even know why you brought it.”

Sirius looked at him. “It’s my _jacket_ , Prongs.” 

“Well you don’t have to wear it _now_ ,” James insisted. “Just leave it for when—fuck here they come,” he said, and immediately knelt down to pull something out of his bag.

Sirius frowned at the abrupt change in James's manner. “They?” he asked, looking around. “Who’s they?”

“Lyall and Moony,” James said, pulling out what Sirius thought looked a lot like the Invisibility Cloak. “I told Lyall you weren’t coming with us. Put this on.” He shoved the cloak at Sirius. “Quick! Go behind that pillar!”

“Fuck— _what_??” Sirius asked as he got a hold of the cloak. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me??”

“I didn’t know Lyall would come!” James furiously gestured for him to shoo with both of his hands. “Go! Go!”

Sirius groaned but ran over to the pillar by the wall and threw the cloak over himself, before poking his head out around it to get a look at Remus and Lyall. 

He noticed Remus was walking slower than usual, impeded by a slight limp Sirius knew he got sometimes after a particularly bad full. Lyall was keeping pace alongside him, though, if Remus's sour look was anything to go by, Remus would rather have made the painful journey across the station without any accompaniment. He had a bandage on the side of his neck, and it looked like another one he had another one under his sleeve. It was the second day after the full moon, but if Remus still looked this bad… Sirius thought with a twisting sense of guilt, it must have been a particularly bad one.

James and Peter, ever the actors, greeted Lyall and Remus with pleasant smiles. (Though Sirius noticed Peter’s eyes flicking over to the pillar where he was hiding intermittently. He resisted the urge to go over and kick him.)

Lyall and Remus greeted them back with tight smiles of their own. “Hello boys,” Lyall said, putting a careful hand on Remus's shoulder that Remus seemed to tense angrily under. “I just… wanted to make sure Remus got here alright.”

“Well I have now,” Remus said, without looking at Lyall. “You’re free to go.” 

Lyall took his hand away from Remus's shoulder, but didn’t look offended at his terseness. Instead, Sirius thought he looked rather guilty.

James came to rescue. “Don’t worry. Mr. Lupin,” he said, smiling. “I promise Remus is in good hands.”

Lyall smiled back, but it ended up looking like more of a grimace. “Yes. Well. Thank you,” he said with a nod. He turned to leave, and gave Remus what looked like a very pleading look. “I’ll… speak with you soon.”

Remus nodded. “Yeah.” 

And with no further words from Remus, Lyall walked away, back into the bustling crowd of passengers at the station, his shoulders slightly hunched. 

Peter, who waited until Lyall was just out of sight, spoke up first. “Merlin, what happened to you, mate?” he asked. Though not tactful, his genuine concern was etched into his brow. 

Remus, who was usually very patient with Peter, snapped. “I think you know very well what happened, Peter.” 

Peter frowned, and shrunk a little. “I… I didn’t mean it like that…”

James put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s just… been a while since it’s been like this, is all,” he said, his own brow furrowing in concern. 

Remus shrugged his shoulders, and instead of elaborating, chose to look down at his feet. “I’m just tired.”

Sirius, though fully aware that he could have pulled the cloak off moments ago, chose to take in Remus's appearance a little more from a safe distance. His skin was pale, though it usually was right after the full, but his eyes retained a weariness that spoke more to a deliberate attempt at absent mindedness than physical exhaustion. His eyes looked down at his feet, but they weren’t taking anything in—his shoulders were curved with all the tension of an overdrawn bow, and his hands were clenched into fists beside him. And despite the tension that governed his body and lined his face, his far-off gaze made it clear Remus was trying not to feel much of anything at all. Sirius knew the stance well. 

Finally, Sirius dispensed with the invisibility cloak and walked back over to the others. “Well, thank you, Prongs, for the delightful extra layer of clothing in this weather,” he said by way of making his entrance, shoving the cloak back at James. “I think the sooner we get on this train, the better, eh?” 

Remus, to Sirius's relief, seemed to snap out of his trance. He raised a brow at Sirius, and appraised him with something close to a smile. “I was wondering where you were hiding,” he said. 

“Over by the pillar,” Sirius said, nodding his head in it’s direction. “But you’d never know it from Wormy’s sly glances, would you?”

Peter got red in the face. “I was nervous!” he said, putting up his hands. “Why is everything already my fault today??”

Remus, miraculously, chuckled. “It’s not. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I think I just… need a vacation.” 

Peter gave Remus a small thankful smile.

James grinned. “Well, let’s get to it then,” he said, hoisting his bag back up over his shoulder. “How does Provence sound?”

Remus's smile widened. “Fantastic, honestly.”

Sirius grabbed his bag as well. “Lead the way,” he said, gesturing with his hand. 

James pulled out the tickets from his pocket and studied them for a moment. “Right, platform ⅞ is this way,” he said, and began to walk over to the brick pillar at the other end of the station. Peter followed along close behind, but Sirius stayed back a few paces to walk with Remus.

“Are you ok?” Sirius asked in a low voice. 

Remus, limping alongside him but still managing to keep up well enough with James and Peter, turned to Sirius and gave him something of a questioning look. “What do you mean?”

All of Sirius's concerns about treading lightly with Remus during the trip faded to the back of his mind, and he looked at Remus with a focused intensity he hadn’t managed to in weeks. “I mean, I saw you and your dad. Is everything… alright?”

Remus's steps halted for a brief moment, and he looked back at Sirius with eyes that, instead of remaining purposefully blank, were suddenly warm with gratitude. “Oh. Yes, I just…” he sighed and shook his head. “We just got into a bit of a fight. Only an argument,” Remus added quickly, “nothing else. But, because I was… more upset than I usually am before the moonrise, the Wolf was too.” He smoothed out the bandage on his neck absent-mindedly as he re-adjusted the bag on his shoulder. “That’s all. I promise.”

Sirius nodded, and though he was sure Remus was still keeping some particulars to himself, felt a little relieved. “Ok. Good. I just…” he shrugged, “I wanted to check.”

“No, that’s,” Remus shook his head. “That’s fine. Really. Thank you, Sirius,” he said, and touched his shoulder in appreciation. 

Sirius felt the touch like a shock through his system, and froze for a moment in surprise before pulling himself together. “Yeah, no worries,” he said, trying to think of the last time Renmus had touched him in the past few months. 

Remus, his thoughts apparently catching up to Sirius's, pulled his hand away and cleared his throat, his cheeks getting just a bit rosier. 

Jame’s voice cut in through the bustle of the station. “Oy!” he called from several meters away. “Come on! There’s not gonna be any seats left!”

~~~

The train was a steam engine, much like the Hogwarts express, though it was considerably larger considering the length of the journey it routinely went on. There was only one line of the Continental Wizarding Rail that went from London through to Paris, and then down to the wizarding town of Ville de Morgaine in Provence. And though the trip was faster than it would have been on muggle rails, the boys still had to brace for a seven hour trip. 

There were other lines that went up to Cologne, Rotterdam, and Zurich from Paris, but James had planned that they started out down south first and worked their way back north and east. They intended to spend a few days in Ville de Morgaine at least, in part because Paris would be too hectic a place to start for Remus right after the full. And though it wasn’t a bustling metropolitan start to their European tour, they were all eager to see how Ville de Morgaine held up against Hogsmeade, as the largest wizarding village in France. 

The compartments were lined with a plush velvet, and were considerably more roomy than those on the Hogwarts Express. James let out a whistle and grinned when they found a compartment at the end of the train. “Well boys? What do you think?”

Peter was nearly vibrating with excitement. “This is... _amazing_!” he exclaimed, tossing his bag up above on the rack and taking a window seat for himself. 

Remus appraised the compartment with a smile. “Makes you wish for a couple of upgrades to the Hogwarts Express, doesn’t it?” he said, putting his bag up onto the rack as well, though with what looked like a bit more effort. 

“I wouldn’t want to sit on something like the Hogwarts Express for _seven hours_ ,” Sirius said as he put up his bag as well. “I can see why they shelled out.”

“What, is your posh bottom that sensitive?” James teased, and slid into the compartment next to Peter. 

Sirius was about to quip back but he stilled, as he realized that James's seat meant that he and Remus would now have to sit together. Sirius shot James an imploring look, but James very deliberately did not look back, and was instead admiring the still slow moving scenery as the train pulled out of the station. 

Sirius bit the inside of his cheek to keep from shouting. He didn’t want to push his luck with Remus just yet, least of all before they could properly sit down and talk in private. 

But Remus cut through his rapidly escalating anxiety. “Um… do you mind if I take the window seat?” he asked. 

Sirius quickly shook his head. “No—that’s, I mean, yeah go ahead.”

Remus nodded and scooted into the compartment, Joining Peter in looking out the window. Sirius sighed and took his seat across from James, who was now giving him a rather content smirk. 

Sirius stepped on his foot and sat down next to Remus. 

“So,” Peter said, turning to the rest of the compartment, “What are we going to do once we get to Ville de Morgaine?”

“I’m looking forward to chatting up some of the locals, personally,” James said, crossing his leg so he could massage his now sore foot through his trainers. “Maybe… hitting it off with a nice, blonde lavender seller at the market.”

“Haven’t been thinking about that one at all, have you?” Sirius said, crossing his arms and raising a brow. 

James kicked him with his free leg. 

Remus chuckled. “I’m looking forward to just sitting and reading under a cypress tree in a field somewhere,” he said, looking rather wistful. “It sounds wonderful.”

“Well I’m heading straight to the bakery tomorrow morning,” Peter said with a smile. “I heard they make _lavender honey croissants_.”

“Well good luck to you and James stumbling about in the village,” Sirius said. “I’m the only one here who speaks French.”

James gave Sirius a patronizing look. “Padfoot, the language of _love_ is universal.”

“Oh, Merlin’s sake!” Sirius said, kicking James's leg back, and the others laughed. 

The ride continued in much the same fashion for the first few hours, with the boys all fantasizing and planning their days ahead. Eventually though, the rocking of the train and the steady passing of scenery lulled them into a longer spell of quiet, and Remus rested his head against the window with his eyes closed. Sirius waited until Remus's mouth was open the slightest bit in a comfortable sleep to turn to the rest of the compartment. 

Sirius held up a finger to his mouth, before proceeding to speak in a whisper. “I think something happened with Lyall.”

James frowned, and set aside the map he had been looking at. “Is that what you two were talking about?”

“I asked him about it,” Sirius said, with a nod. “He didn’t say much, though. Just that they had an argument.”

“Well,” Peter started, shooting a worried look over to Remus, “What do you think happened?”

“I… I don’t know,” Sirius said. “But, you saw the look Moony had, right? How he tensed up when Lyall touched him?”

James sat up a little straighter. “You think Lyall hurt him.”

Sirius shrugged again. “All I’m saying is that I knew that look in his eyes well enough.”

James and Peter exchanged looks and fell into silence. No one talked much about the events that led Sirius to run away to the Potters’ home that winter, unless Sirius brought them up himself. And even then, he had really only discussed the particulars with James, and then eventually somewhat to Remus, during their late night conversations last term before the ‘prank.’ But he hadn’t told Remus everything. 

After a moment, Sirius spoke again. “I don’t know if that’s what happened. He said it was the Wolf that did most of the damage. All I know is that there was an argument. And it was bad.”

The crease between James's brow deepened as he thought for a moment. “Did Moony say anything else about the argument?”

“Only that it got him upset enough that the Wolf was especially agitated,” Sirius said. “Lyall obviously felt guilty enough to make sure he got over to you guys safely.” He looked over at Remus then, who was still sleeping blissfully still against the window. “I just don’t know what Lyall could have said that was worse than their usual arguments.”

“Well,” James said, looking over at Remus as well, “Maybe he’ll want to tell us more about it when we’re settled some place. I don’t think we should push him yet, though. He looks like he needs to forget about everything for a while.”

Sirius nodded. He could certainly sympathize with that. “Yeah, you’re right.”

A hitch in the tracks jostled the riding car, and Remus stirred from his sleep. He yawned, and turned, blinking slowly to see everyone in the compartment looking at him. “Sorry, he said, voice a little rough with sleep. “Dozed off a bit.”

“No need to be sorry,” James said easily. “You just missed us gossiping about you.”

Sirius smiled. James had become ever-so adept at covering his tracks with the actual truth in a way that still served as a diversion. (Though Peter’s eyes still widened after James spoke.)

Remus chuckled. “Damn. Shame to have missed that,” he said, re-adjusting himself in his seat to sit up straighter and away from the window. 

“Well, I’m afraid we’ve exhausted the topic for now,” James said, feigning boredom. “Shall we move on to Wormtail?”

“Hey!” 

And with that, the compartment went back to an easy mix of teasing and chatter. Sirius stole glances over at Remus when he was too engaged with the others to pick up on it, just to see if he could notice anything else that might help him piece together what had happened. All he saw though, was that the Remus sitting next to him seemed incredibly happy to be with his friends, and entirely unlike the hurting and angry Remus at the station. So perhaps that was enough for now. 

Though this Remus still scratched from time to time at the bandage on his neck. 

~~~ 

Sirius felt the train slow to a stop, and let out a sleep-heavy groan. Then there was a clicking sound and a bright flash of light. He groaned again and stirred a bit, only to find that there was a warm weight against his side and on his shoulder, and that he in turn was resting his head on top of something soft. His eyes shot open, and saw James and Peter grinning at him, and James with the muggle instant-camera he had gotten for Christmas. 

Sirius lifted his head and saw that Remus was sleeping, again, against his side, with his head still on his shoulder. And that apparently, he had been sleeping with his head atop Remus's as well. 

“Did you just take… a fucking picture of this?” He asked James in a very low voice. 

James grin got impossibly wider, and he shook the small square photo that had popped out of the camera lazily. “Well you know, you both just looked so _cute_.”

Sirius wanted to leap across the compartment and wrestle him for the picture, but he didn’t want to give Remus that rude of an awakening. “...I’m going to kill you,” he settled on saying instead, staying perfectly still in his seat. 

James and Peter barely suppressed their laughter. “Come on, mate” James said. “It’s just a photo.”

“I don’t want to push my luck with him any more than I already am!” Sirius whispered back furiously. 

“I’m pretty sure he’ll be just fine with it,” James said with a smile, and dropped the photograph into his shirt front pocket. “I plan on documenting this trip extensively, so you may as well get used to it now.”

Sirius groaned and rested his head back against his seat. “I wish your mum never bought you that thing. How’d you even pack it?”

“Extension charm,” James said with a shrug. “It’s my dad’s bag. Probably forgot he put one on before he let me use it.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” Peter asked.

“The Ministry’s not going to arrest my dad for wanting to pack a few extra hiking boots back in the day,” James said. 

“You can turn into a bloody rat, Pete,” Sirius said with a roll of his eyes. “We’re well past breaking the law at this point.”

“I didn’t say we weren’t!” Peter squeaked back defensively. 

This finally woke Remus. He stirred a bit and opened his eyes, only to have them widen as he went stiff as a board against Sirius's side. He pulled himself up in his seat, and flushed bright red as he turned to the other boys in the compartment. “...How long was I asleep?”

“The last three hours,” James said with a grin. “Don’t worry, Padfoot got his beauty rest as well.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the still developing photograph. “There, that’s for you.”

Remus warily took the photograph, and turned even redder when he saw the vague image on the paper. 

Sirius matched the redness exactly and sat tensely for Remus's response, cursing James mentally for his idiocy. 

But Remus only rolled his eyes and smiled. “You prat. I should have never taught you how to use that camera.”

Sirius let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. 

James and Peter laughed. “And miss the opportunity to immortalize precious cuddle sessions like this? Come on now,” James said, as he hoisted his bag over his shoulder. “Luxurious as it is, I think I’ve had enough of this train.”

“How far is the inn from the station?” Peter asked, grabbing his bag as well. “My legs are so cramped from sitting I don’t think I can walk that far.”

“Well I’m not carrying you,” Sirius grumbled, grabbing his bag from the top. He thought for a moment and pulled Remus's down as well, since he had difficulty getting it up in the first place. He placed it down on the seat without looking at Remus, and slung his bag over his shoulder.

“Map says it’s about fifteen minutes from the station,” James said, folding said map into his pocket. “Besides, I thought you’d be plenty rested after snoring away for just as long as these boys.”

Peter pouted and crossed his arms. “I only snore when I’m sitting up! You know that!”

“Now the whole car does too, I reckon,” James said with his signature smug smile he got when he was teasing his friends. 

Sirius laughed, and Peter’s pout turned into a resigned frown.

James patted Peter on the back and nodded out of the compartment. “Come on, I bet we can still make it to some shops this evening before they close,” he said, and walked out of the compartment. 

Peter sighed and hefted his bag over his shoulder, following after James. Sirius was about to follow when he noticed Remus hadn’t moved, and was standing still in the compartment.

He turned and saw that Remus was giving him an unreadable look. Perhaps inquisitive, but appreciative. He felt as if he had caught doing something incriminating, but he had no idea what. “...What?” he asked eventually.

Remus tilted his head. “You got my bag,” he said.

“Uh…” Sirius looked at the bag and then at Remus. “Yeah. Should I not have?” Suddenly he felt the need to cover for any mistake he may have made. “I just… I mean I know you hurt your arm. Not that you couldn’t have gotten it yourself, or anything. But—”

“No,” Remus said, shaking his head and picking up his bag. “It’s fine.” He seemed to appraise Sirius a little before gesturing out of the compartment. “Shall we, then?”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed and nodded, his head swimming as he left the train. 

~~~

The town of Ville de Morgaine was unlike anything Sirius had ever experienced in Britain. Where there was a near constant smog and cloudiness about London, Ville de Morgaine seemed to have sprung from sunshine itself. Nestled about a small mountain, the town rose in tiers of old stone buildings to the old castle at the top—the crown that overlooked the lavender fields and out across the sea below. There were tall wisps of wild grass growing around the dirt paths, and wooden cart vendors still selling their wares in the slowly reddening evening sun. The legends said that Morgan Le Fae settled there after King Arthur’s death, and never returned to Britain after she came upon the mountain. The wizarding community that sprung up around Morgan’s castle was one of the oldest still in existence in western Europe. 

Peter complained about the incline of the roads almost immediately. “Merlin, this entire town is one big hike,” he moaned. 

“We _just_ started walking,” Sirius snapped back at Peter from where he was keeping stride with James at the front. 

“I’m sure we’ll get used to it after a few days,” James called over his shoulder with a smile. “Damn,” he said, turning to Sirius. “This place is brilliant, isn’t it?”

Sirius smiled, taking in the small shops they passed on their way up to the inn. “It sure isn’t Hogsmeade,” he agreed. 

“Yeah,” James said, eyeing a girl who brushed past them with a bundle of goods in a basket. “I think it has a lot more to offer, personally.”

“Can you at least wait to put down your bag before you start hunting the locals?” Sirius said with a laugh, elbowing James. 

James laughed as well. “Not _hunting_ , mate! _Observing_. There’s a difference, and I pride myself on knowing it.”

“Sure,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes. He looked back at Peter and Remus, who were keeping stride with each other just fine despite Remus's now only slight limp. It seems that resting on the train did him a world of good. 

“You gonna talk to him here?” James asked, noticing where Sirius's gaze had drifted. 

Sirius turned back to James and shrugged. “Guess I have to some time.”

The biggest inn at Ville de Morgaine was one that was built in the early nineteenth century, which for a majority of the village was fairly recent. It was comprised of three floors and an attic space, filled with rooms with bunks and single beds alike, and a single kitchen and long table where the cooks brought out a variety of stews, breads, cheeses, pastries and drinks at meal times. It had an altogether rustic charm that was only slightly dampened by the curtness of the innkeeper woman at the counter. 

She was a middle-aged witch with mousy grey hair, though it was impeccably done up in a twist. Her coverall dress gave her a decidedly more jaunty look than the one she was leveling at the four boys as they walked into the inn. She looked down her nose at them as Sirius approached the counter. 

“ _Hi there_ ,” Sirius greeted in French, putting on his most charming smile.

The witch narrowed her eyes. “ _You are English, yes?_ ”

Sirius nodded, smiling still in an attempt at placation. “ _Unfortunately all four of us are. I deeply regret your misfortune in having to put us up_.”

The witch quirked a smile at that. “ _Your French is not the worst I’ve heard_ ,” she said, and turned to the wall of large old keys behind her. “ _How many rooms?_ ”

Sirius glanced back at James, Remus, and Peter, who were all looking at him eagerly. “ _Whatever the most economic space for four people is_ ,” Sirius said. “ _We’re on a budget, you see_.”

The witch made a noise of acknowledgment and handed Sirius one large key with elaborate designs along it’s handle. “ _You may take the attic. There are four cots and a toilet._ ”

Sirius grinned and took the key. “ _That sounds exactly like what we’re looking for. I hope it’s free for two nights?_ ” 

The witch nodded. “ _It is._ ”

“ _Perfect_ ,” Sirius said, pocketing the key. “ _Thank you, Madame…_?”

“ _Madame Lalande_ ,” she said. “ _I need a name to put down for you as well, Monsieur_.”

Sirius's smiled wider. He had never been a ‘monsieur’ before. “ _Sirius_ ,” he said, declining to give his last name just to be safe. 

“ _Sirius_ ,” Madame Lalande repeated, and scribbled the name onto a piece of paper on the desk. “ _Enjoy_ _your stay._ ”

“ _Thank you again_ ,” Sirius said, and turned to his friends with a grin. “We get the attic floor all to ourselves,” he said triumphantly.

“Bloody hell, can you charm the pants off a woman in any language?” James asked.

“I speak English as well, Monsieur,” Madame Lalande said, turning her cold eyes towards James.

James froze like a deer in headlights. 

Remus snorted, and Peter’s eyes widened. Sirius himself bit back a laugh. “ _My apologies, Madame Lalande. We took our friend to France to learn some manners_.”

Madame Lalande nodded approvingly at this. “ _See that he does_.”

With that Sirius turned and made his way up the stairs, the others following close behind him. 

Remus patted James on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll be up for a date eventually,” he said with a teasing smile.

James groaned. 

The attic room was sparse, but it still held the rustic charm of the rest of the inn. The four cots were set up in pairs, two towards the entrance and two at the far end of the floor closer to the bathroom. The evening sun still streamed through the peaked windows, casting large patches of light onto the old wooden floor and illuminating the white plaster walls in a pinkish orange hue. 

“Well isn’t this picturesque,” James said with a grin, dropping his bag onto the second closest bed.

“I’ll say,” Remus agreed with a smile, taking in the view from the windows as he walked over to the far end. 

Peter put his bag on the other bed at the end of the room next to Remus, and flopped onto the cot. “When do you think they’ll bring out the food for tonight?”

James sat down on his bed and leaned back on his elbows. “Well it is France, so… might be as late as half eight, I guess.”

Remus and Peter exchanged a look. “Well that won’t do,” Remus said with a chuckle. “How about Pete and I make a circle around the market for any discounts on bread and cheeses?” 

Sirius was always amazed at just how much Remus could eat and still look like a beanpole, but he was sure it had something to do with lycanthropy. Peter didn’t eat nearly as much as Remus, though he certainly savored mealtimes the most. Food was something the two had always happily bonded over: Peter on the execution and the flavor of the dishes, while Remus delighted in the sheer quantities he was able to consume. 

“Sounds good to me,” James said, turning to look at Sirius. “Want to explore a bit before it gets dark? Meet back here in a few hours?”

“Sure,” Sirius said with a shrug. “Oh,” he pulled out the large key Madame Lalande had given him from his pocket. “There’s only one key.”

James, Sirius, and Peter all looked over to Remus. 

Remus sighed. “Give it here,” he said, and held out his hand.

James grinned. “Thanks, mum.”

“Uh-huh,” Remus drawled, though he smiled. 

Sirius walked over and handed him the key. Remus looked up at Sirius as their fingers touched, and again Sirius was struck by how much Remus seemed to be studying him, even in passing. His eyes were sharp with the same unreadable look they had on the train. 

“Right then,” James said, beaming. “See you boys soon. Padfoot, you’re going to be my translator.”

“Fantastic,” Sirius sighed. 


	3. Remus and Sirius

**II**

**REMUS AND SIRIUS**

**Early Spring, 1976**

The waxing moon loomed bright in the night sky, illuminating Sirius and Remus as they sat in the large circular window in Gryffindor tower. 

“I miss them,” Sirius said, his knees tucked up towards his chest as he looked out onto the frost-dusted grounds. “Some of them. That’s pretty fucking stupid, isn’t it?”

Remus looked out over the grounds as well, and took a drag on the cigarette they were sharing between them. “I don’t think so,” he said. “They’re your family.”

“But they’re… them,” Sirius said and shook his head. “I don’t know. It feels stupid. After everything.” 

Remus handed the cigarette back to Sirius. “Well,” he said, his voice never reaching above a low murmur despite the silencing spell he had cast around them, “family’s more complicated than that, I think.”

Sirius took a drag on the cigarette. “It shouldn’t be.”

“I know,” Remus said, and smiled a little. “But we’re supposed to love them. It’s our nature by default. We let them get away with a lot more because we think that they’re right, and it ends up hurting us. That’s not our fault, it’s just the way it happens.” He rolled his shoulder back and Sirius heard a light pop. His joints were always popping this time of the lunar cycle. Aching with a premature readiness. “I think that love is always going to be there, no matter how horrible they may turn out to be. It’s not good or bad, it’s just there. And it might hurt sometimes more than others. Like now.”

“I guess,” Sirius said, stubbing out the last of the cigarette on the stone ledge of the window. He looked at Remus then. Instead of being washed out by the pale light of the moon, he looked radiant. Like he belonged there in its light. Remus gave him a smile that was kind enough to feel as it graced Sirius with its gaze. “I think you think too much, Moony,” Sirius said, smiling back at Remus. 

Remus's smile twitched upwards more. “If I didn’t, who else would think for the lot of us?”

Sirius laughed at that. And it was the first time he had laughed at all in a long while. 

. . . 

**Summer, 1976**

Sirius laid awake in his cot. It had to be at least five in the morning, and he hadn’t slept. 

The prior evening had gone by smoothly enough. Sirius and James walked around the village, scouting out shops, and James bumbled through basic French as he tried to flirt with some unlucky vendors. Sirius made fun of him and they’d move on to the next shop or grass-lined road to walk around. 

When they got back, Peter and Remus had an entire sandwich spread set up on a spare blanket in the attic room, complete with at least three different kinds of cheeses, two types of baguettes, a small bottle of olive oil, tomatoes, and various greenery. They had given James and Sirius sheepish smiles when they returned to the room to find the smorgasboard. “We got a little excited,” Remus admitted. 

So they made up their sandwiches and talked and laughed the evening away. Sirius and James suggested what shops they could go to in the morning, and Peter and Remus talked about what food vendors they all needed to go back and try. James would relay his successes with chatting up women, and Sirius would correct him and say that they were absolutely _not_ successes, just valiant first efforts. They teased each other, and laughed, and talked more, and shoved each other around. It was almost like being back in Gryffindor tower. 

Except Remus, though they had managed to be cordial to each other thus far, didn’t laugh with Sirius like he used to. He didn’t directly contribute to his conversation, or nudge him when he was being obnoxious. He only offered the same uncertain, appraising look he had been giving him since their journey began. He was keeping himself at a distance, and it hurt Sirius too much to let it continue. 

They had all decided to forgo the evening meal at the inn that night and head to bed so they could get an early start on the morning. 

“I’m gonna talk to him tomorrow,” Sirius whispered to James before they went to sleep. 

“You sure?” James whispered back. 

“Yeah,” Sirius said, and turned to lay on his back. “It needs to happen.”

James had nodded and promised to keep an eye out for when he and Peter needed to leave the two alone. 

That had been at ten o’clock. Nearly seven hours later and Sirius had been too fraught with nerves to sleep more than a few minutes at a time. Everything he had wanted to say for more than a month was swirling around in his head as he tried to piece it together in coherent sentences. James had tried to help him over the summer—they had talked through it countless times, rehearsed reactions, James had even offered suggestions. But now that Sirius had finally decided to do it, he felt less prepared than ever.

There was a creaking sound of a cot, and Sirius looked over to see that Remus was getting out of bed. (This in itself wasn’t much of a surprise. Though it was early, Remus had the tendency to either be an incredibly early riser, or an incredibly late one. He oscillated between the two frequently, with no particular rhyme or reason.) The fact that he seemed to be planning on leaving, however, piqued Sirius's interest. 

Sirius quickly shut his eyes as he heard Remus get dressed and ready as quietly as possible, and then fish around in his bag for something. He heard the scratch of a pencil on paper, and then Remus tiptoeing across the room and smoothly slipping out the door. He waited a few moments before springing out of bed and throwing some clothes on (decidedly less quietly than Remus, but James and Peter were heavy sleepers). He knew that this may be the only time he and Remus would be able to talk in private, and though he was still sickeningly nervous, he wasn’t about to let this chance go to waste. Sirius was about to open the door and dash after him when he saw a note left on the floor in front of the door along with the large brass key to the room:

Went up to the castle ruins to read at 5.00, should be back before any of you wake up. 

If not, here’s the key. PLEASE do not lose it. 

-M

Sirius smiled, and decided to wait for a few more minutes on his cot. He could let Remus read for at least a little while. 

About a half hour later, Sirius finally left the room, leaving behind Remus's note and the key. The path to the castle ruins ran throughout town, gradually ascending through winding dirt roads to the top of the mountain. Sirius passed vendors pulling their carts and tables out onto the roads, getting an early start for the day ahead as the rising sun colored the sky a pale purple. Though the sun hadn’t fully risen, it was already warm enough for Sirius to have built up a sweat by the time he reached the top of the town.

The castle ruins weren’t quite as big as some of the others Sirius had seen in England, but he had to admit they were still impressive. The walls still bore the stone seal of Morgan le Fae, and the main walls and a cylindrical tower were intact, though crumbling. In the courtyard, by what used to be the entrance, there was a large cypress tree, its branches wide reaching and thick as they splintered upwards like veins. And beneath the tree, at its base, with his knees tucked up and his nose buried in an enormous book, sat Remus. 

He seemed too engrossed in the book to notice Sirius's presence at the edge of the castle wall. A part of Sirius thought it would be cruel to interrupt him now, after seeing him so happily engaged with his reading. But he had come all this way, and he knew it would be his only chance to speak with him away from the others. And so Sirius took a deep breath, and quietly walked over to the tree. 

Remus still had not looked up from his book when Sirius stopped a few feet away from him. 

“Um…” Sirius began, and he hated how his voice sounded dry and cracked. “Hi.”

“Hello, Sirius,” Remus said, and finally looked up at him. The look he gave him was impassive, a non-expression.

Sirius was thrown for a moment by the fact that Remus didn’t seem very surprised to see him, but then he found himself mentally rolling his eyes. Considering how attuned he was at picking up scents and lurking presences, even while he was human, Remus had probably known he was close this entire time. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

Remus sighed through his nose. “I’m sorry, but I came up here to be alone for a while.”

Sirius felt his stomach drop, but he pushed forward. “I know,” he said. “But I need to talk to you.” 

Remus closed his book partially, keeping his thumb in it to mark his space between pages. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk just yet.”

“That’s… um…” Sirius struggled to find words for a moment. “That’s fine. But… would you mind if I shared the courtyard with you for a bit?”

Remus seemed to wrestle with the proposition for a moment before shrugging. “...I suppose that’d be fine.”

Sirius nodded. “Thanks,” he said, and walked over to the other side of the tree and sat down.

He heard Remus sigh again and re-open his book. 

Sirius drew one knee up to rest his arm on as he took in the courtyard. Though he couldn’t see them, he could smell the fields of lavender just beyond the wall, wafting over the hillside along with the slightly chilled sea breeze. He picked at the lush grass absently beneath him, the only sound accompanying the early morning bird calls the soft turn of Remus's pages. 

They sat there for quite some time. Long enough for the sky to turn from its pale purple to a lighter blue, and for the sounds of the town to filter up to them from below. Sirius didn’t mind if he had to wait all day. 

He finally heard Remus's book close, and Remus re-adjust his position against the tree. “You’re always so persistent,” he said, and he sounded almost wistful.

Sirius smiled a little. “I’ve heard it said before.”

Remus gave a small huff. “Well. Since you set up this neat little confessional, I’ll hear you out.”

Sirius's heart leapt and began beating so fast he felt it might burst. “Ok,” he said, and tucked his other knee up to his chest. “I’m… this isn’t going to sound very neat, but if you let me get it all out, I think it’ll make sense.”

“Ok,” Remus replied, and it sounded patient. 

Sirius took a deep breath. “Alright. I know that… when I apologized before, it sounded—well, it _was_ , a bit shallow. I was a real git to just talk about how I had been punished instead of how I had affected you.” 

He paused to see if Remus would say anything. When he was met with silence, Sirius continued. “And I think that you were right. I _don’t_ think about how what I do affects other people. I’m selfish in most things I do. And no one’s ever really told me that before, and I’m sorry it had to be you to do it.”

Sirius scratched the back of his neck nervously for a moment. “When I told Sni—uh, Snape, about the Willow… I … well, I don’t think I was thinking at all. Ever since I ran away to James's this Christmas… I haven’t been alright. And I know that’s not an excuse, it’s just… I’ve had trouble thinking straight all the time. I know you guys probably noticed, but… I snapped at Peter more, I talked back to all my professors… I was just meaner. And I know it’s because I was taking everything I was angry about out on other people.

“But you,” Sirius said, and he could feel his hands start to shake with nerves. He clenched them tightly into fists and rested them in his lap. “You were so good to me. You talked me through everything, and you never made me feel like I was over-reacting to anything. Like there was a reason for every stupid thought that went through my head. And it helped… _so_ much…” He took a moment to steady himself—he could feel a tightness forming in his throat and he was damned if Remus was going to hear it. “But I was still too focused on how I was hurting to think about how what I did would hurt you. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to think about anyone else. And I’m so sorry.”

He let out a sigh. Remus was still silent. Even the birds had stopped chirping, like they were eager to hear how this would all turn out too. “I know that you… that it’s not easy for you, all the time. And when I pulled that prank, I know I was treating you more like a thing than a person. And that’s, fuck, it’s bloody awful. Because I _know_ you, Remus. And I know you’re so much more than what’s happened to you, and it’s not fair that everyone else treats you like you’re not the brilliant, kind person that you are. But I became one of those people when I told Snape. And I know that there’s really nothing I can do to make up for that. You trusted me, and I let you down in the biggest way I could.” 

Sirius began picking at his fingernails. “It’s… it’s not fair, what you have to go through. It’s not fair that your dad treats you like something dangerous and fragile, and it’s not fair how it seems like… like no one else can see how much harder people have made your life when they should be helping you.”

It was so silent Sirius was half-convinced Remus had left the courtyard, but he pushed through to the end of what he needed to say regardless. “I don’t want to ask for your forgiveness. That seems… I don’t think I’ve earned the right to do that. And you should only do that when you want to. If you want to at all. But maybe… I want you to know that I know what I did, and to know that I want to do better. That I _will_ do better. Because that’s the least I can do for you.” 

Sirius finally stopped, and the silence stretched on.

“I think I can manage that,” came Remus's voice to his left, and Sirius snapped his head up to see Remus standing beside him, a small smile softening his reddened eyes and a hand outstretched to Sirius. 

Sirius's breath left his lungs. He took Remus's hand and let himself get helped to his feet, and pulled Remus into an embrace. Remus eagerly reciprocated it, and Sirius felt like he’d never been happier to be hugged by someone in his life. 

“I’m so sorry,” Sirius repeated, and he felt tears prickling at the back of his eyes. 

“I know,” Remus said, and held him tighter. “Thank you, Sirius.”

They stayed like that for a long time, longer than Sirius can ever remember embracing someone before, but somehow it didn’t feel strange or out of place at all. And so Sirius treated the hold like a second apology—another chance for Remus to feel everything he had already said. 

“I missed you,” Remus said into Sirius's shoulder before pulling back and smiling at him. His eyes were wet, and he had a slight rosiness to his cheeks. 

Sirius grinned and wiped away his own tears with the back of his hand quickly. “Me too. Fucking hell, let’s never fight again, ok?” he said it with a laugh, but he knew it wasn’t ever going to be as simple as that. He just wanted Remus to know how relieved he was.

Remus chuckled, and Sirius knew he understood what he meant. “Alright, deal,” he said. 

“And don’t tell James I cried, he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

“Deal again,” Remus said, his smile widening. He turned his face to the courtyard wall, and his light hair was swept gently away from his face as a sea breeze brushed past them both, carrying again the scent of lavender and salt. “Guess it’s time for us to both start enjoying ourselves again, huh?”

Sirius didn’t know why his heart beat just a little faster, but he was too happy to question it. “I’d say so.”

Remus turned his chin up a little so that his nose caught more of the breeze. He did so nearly seamlessly, but Sirius could tell he was trying to catch a stronger scent of the air with small sniffs. Remus finally turned to smile at him. “I bet we can see the ocean and the lavender fields at the top of the tree.”

Sirius laughed at Remus's obvious excitement. “Yeah, I guess we could.”

Remus turned towards the trunk of the tree, and with his un-bandaged arm reached upwards for a branch, pulling himself up onto it. He extended his hand to Sirius, perched on the thick branch in a squat. “Let’s go see it, then.”

Sirius couldn’t help but balk at the hand Remus extended to him. “Uh… the… now?”

Remus laughed. “Yeah, why not?”

“Uh, well…” Sirius looked up to the top of the tree and then back to Remus. He supposed he didn’t really have to hide anything from Remus now. But that didn’t stop him from feeling embarrassed. “I don’t know. I’ve just never done it before.”

“You…” Remus frowned and took back his hand so he could better support himself on the branch. “You’ve never climbed a tree?”

Sirius felt himself get red in the face. “Not a lot of trees in London, mate.” That, and the fact that rugged, frivolous exploits like tree climbing weren’t exactly encouraged in the House of Black. 

Remus, as though he could hear what Sirius was thinking, decided to not dwell on it. “Well. This is a hell of a first tree to climb, then,” he said, and offered his hand again. 

Sirius sighed, and begrudgingly took his hand. “If I fall and snap my neck, you’re paying for the funeral.”

“Sounds good,” Remus said, and heaved him up onto the same branch he was sitting on, as Sirius scrabbled for support along the trunk. 

Once he found his footing on the branch, Sirius knelt down next to Remus on it. He turned and gave him a displeased frown. “Loads of fun, this.”

Remus snorted. “We’re only four feet off the ground,” he said, and stood up on the branch to grab another that was by his head. “Come on, it’s just like climbing a ladder.”

“You make it sound so exhilarating,” Sirius grumbled, but he studied Remus's movements, and copied them the best he could as he followed him up the tree. Truthfully, he did find it a little exciting—following Remus up into the mess of branches towards the sun that filtered through the leaves. Remus looked back every once in a while to make sure he was managing alright, and he’d give him a smile that made Sirius want to prove that he could meet him as far up on the tree as Remus wanted to go. 

Eventually, the branches became too thin to grab, and Remus stopped to sit securely down onto one of the last large branches, his long legs dangling off the side. “Told you this would be a good spot,” he said, looking out over the courtyard walls. 

Sirius took a seat beside him, leaning against the trunk for support, and followed Remus's gaze. They were at least twenty feet above ground, and indeed Sirius could see down over the castle’s courtyard wall to the rows of lavender fields that cascaded down the hillside. They met the ocean in an uneven horizon, the tufts of purple seeming to brush up against the piercing light blue of the ocean below. Sirius had to admit it was quite the sight. 

“Yeah ok, you were right,” he said, purposefully sounding less enthused than he was. 

Remus seemed to sense this and smiled triumphantly. 

They took a moment to sit in silence and take in the view. Unlike their earlier shared silence, this wasn’t heavy with the promise of any confrontation. Sirius felt that it was maybe the first time since the trip began that he had been truly at ease. 

After a few minutes, Remus spoke. “How was your summer? Before the trip, I mean.”

Sirius glanced at Remus before looking back out onto the ocean. “Fine, I guess.” He had spent most of it going over the apology he had planned with James, but he didn’t feel the need to tell Remus that.

“Life at the Potters’ treating you well, then?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, and smiled. “They asked me to stop calling them Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Want me to call them ‘Monty’ and ‘Mia’ and everything. I even have my own room.” 

Sirius could hear the smile in Remus's voice as well. “I’m glad.”

It made Sirius sad, that even after they had spent the end of the school year not speaking to each other, and half the summer, it seemed Remus couldn’t stop himself from worrying about Sirius. He turned to look at Remus, then. He wanted to make it clear Remus didn’t need to worry as much anymore. “I’m happy with them. It feels like a home.”

Remus returned his gaze and gave him a warm smile. “Good,” he said, with a trace of relief. 

Sirius smiled back, but then he looked down to see that Remus was scratching at his bandaged arm, and his smile faded. “Do you… still not want to talk about what happened with your dad?”

Remus stopped scratching abruptly and put his hands in his lap. “I… no, sorry,” he said, and began picking at his nails. “I promise I will, it’s just… I’d like to enjoy myself a little more before I talk about it again.”

Sirius shook his head. “No, that’s—I get it,” he said. “Really.”

Remus nodded, and began scratching at the bandage again. “I just wish this would heal better. Kind of difficult to go to the beach with these,” he said. 

“Well, do you mind if I take a look?” Sirius asked, trying to sound casual. 

Sirius and Remus had gotten to talking like this often, over the past year: talking about their own symptoms instead of the root of their problems with each other. It was a way of feeling less alone, without having to pour everything out to each other just yet. They both knew it was only a temporary fix, but it helped in the meantime nonetheless. 

And so Remus nodded. “Sure,” he said, and peeled back the medical tape that was holding the padded gauze down around his forearm. “The one on my neck looks about the same. It doesn’t hurt, just itches.” He unwrapped the bandage and held out for Sirius to see. 

Sirius tried to not show any of the alarm he felt ringing in his head. There were bites and scratch marks all down his forearm, yes—but that was par for the course after a transformation where his friends weren’t there to help him. What concerned Sirius was the redness looping around Remus's arm, like a fiery rope had been wound tightly around it. He looked up at the bandage on Remus's neck, and wondered if it was the same kind of wound. 

There were so many questions Sirius wanted to ask, but he knew Remus didn’t want to answer any of them. He hummed in thought as he observed the wound. “I bet they have something in town for magical burns and rashes. That would probably help more than your usual supplies. We can look today when we go.”

Remus inclined his head in thought. “That might help, actually,” he said, and started re-wrapping the bandage. “Do you think they’ll have something like that though?”

“Probably,” Sirius said. “James and I walked into an apothecary yesterday. There’s a pretty fit lady behind the counter so I’m sure he wouldn’t mind going back.”

Remus chuckled. “Sounds good to me,” he said, and re-fastened the tape. His smile was warmer now, and carried a palpable gratitude with it. Sirius thought it made Remus's grey-blue eyes that much brighter. “Thank you, Sirius.” 

Sirius smiled back. “’Course.”

They turned back to the ocean, but Sirius eventually found his eyes drawn back and back again to look at Remus. There was still the hint of a smile tugging at his pale lips, and the wind made his wispy hair flutter away from his face. Sirius didn’t know why, exactly, seeing Remus like this made him so distracted, but he figured he was trying to catch up on all the moments he missed while they weren’t talking to each other. He had missed Remus's presence more than he realized, he supposed. 

The sound of voices wafting up from the hillside gradually got louder. Sirius and Remus turned their heads in tandem to see the far-away figures of James and Peter ascending the hill to the top of the ruins.

Remus frowned. “How long have we been here?” he asked.

Sirius shrugged. “Can’t have been that long, can it?”

James was the first through the courtyard, and Sirius saw him stop to look around for a moment. Then he heard a gasp echo off the stone walls, and saw James pointing at the base of the tree. “I found Moony’s book!” he called over to Peter, and rushed over to the tree to pick it up.

Peter shuffled over to meet him, looking rather sweaty and tired. “Well then where the hell is Moony? Or Padfoot?”

Sirius smirked. “Should we make this easier or harder for them?” he murmured to Remus. 

Remus snorted. “We better let them know. Poor Wormy looks like he’s about to pass out,” he said, and began waving at them from above. “Up here!”

James and Peter were somewhat startled by the interruption, but they both looked up with relief on their faces.

“Well well well,” James said, “Moony and Padfoot sitting in a tree, eh?”

Peter cackled, and Remus rolled his eyes. 

Sirius broke off a twig and chucked it at James. “Piss off!”

James laughed. “Sorry to break this up,” he said. “You were both gone for so long we just started to think you might have killed each other.” He delivered it like a joke, but there was genuine concern evident in his face. 

“What time is it?” Remus asked.

“Almost eight,” Peter called up. 

“Shit,” Remus said, exchanging a look with Sirius. “We didn’t realize.”

“Just glad you’re ok,” James said, looking between the two. “You _are_ ok, right?”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t butt in!” Sirius snapped.

“Well that was before you two went missing for three hours wasn’t it!” James called back.

Remus laughed, and swung a leg over the branch he and Sirius had been sitting on. “Don’t worry. Everything’s sorted here,” he said, and began climbing down the tree. 

“Glad to hear it,” James said, and gave Sirius a proud-looking smile.

Sirius smiled back. 

Remus descended the branches of the tree much faster than he had climbed them, and so he was half-way down before Sirius got a chance to study his pathway for his own way down. He sat up away from where he’d been resting against the trunk and hesitantly placed his leg on the other side of the branch like Remus had, but he lost his balance and ended up clinging to the branch on his stomach for support. 

Remus had reached the grass and had started chatting with James and Peter. Sirius looked down and tried to find a secure foothold beneath the branch he was on, but they all seemed just a little too awkwardly far away. He cursed under his breath.

He saw Remus, James, and Peter look up at him from below. 

“Coming down, Pads?” James asked.

“Yep,” Sirius said tightly. 

“Great. Soon?” 

“ _Yep_ ,” he bit out. 

“Oh Merlin he’s stuck up there isn’t he?” James said, squinting up at him with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun.

“Shut up!” Sirius snapped, and tried to reach down to the branch below one more time with his foot. He was met with empty air, and he drew his leg back up. 

James burst into laughter, and Peter joined him. Even Remus looked like he was holding back a bit of a laugh, though he looked more guilty than anything. 

“I’m so sorry!” Remus called up to him. “I didn’t think it would be any more difficult than getting up there!”

“How??” Sirius asked, twisting his head to look at him. 

Remus looked sheepishly back at him. “Do you want me to come back up there and help you?”

“Absolutely not,” Sirius said. “I can get down I just… need a minute!” 

“Thought your animagus was a dog,” James said with a smirk, “not a _cat_ , Padfoot.”

“I really don’t think that will help,” Remus said, his tone admonishing. 

Sirius groaned, and reached down with his leg again. He reached just a little further than before and got his toes to meet the branch, and was now stuck in an awkward jackknife position across the two branches. 

“Just drop your other leg down!” Remus called. “You’ve got it!”

Peter leaned over to James. “Too bad you didn’t bring your camera.” 

“Fuck you, Pete!” Sirius shouted, but finally got both feet on the branch below. 

“Hooray!” James cheered, and began applauding. Peter joined in, and Remus still looked like he was once again holding back a laugh. 

Now that he was down one branch, the rest didn’t seem nearly as bad as they did at the top. He released his grip from the branch above and lowered himself down again. Sirius sighed. “Well,” he began, “I’ve decided I’m no longer friends with any of you, so you’re free to go enjoy the beach.”

James, Remus, and Peter all started to laugh.

“Really, mate, you’re almost there,” James said mockingly. 

“I’m moving in with Benjy Fenwick!” Sirius called back.

Remus and Peter cackled, and James's jaw dropped in mock offense. “You wouldn’t!” James called back.

“Sending him an owl the moment I get down!” Sirius said, as he made it down another branch. “Remus, I’ve decided we’re fighting again.” 

Remus laughed extra hard at that. “I’m sorry!”

“No,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “I’ve decided. We’re not speaking for another two months.”

Remus, James, and Peter all laughed. They continued to tease him as he made his way down, with Sirius spitting back mocking retorts, until he reached a branch only about seven feet off the grass, at which point he just hung down from it and dropped himself to the ground. He landed in an awkward squat and lost his balance, causing him to fall over onto the grass beneath him. 

The others made a circle around Sirius, James grinning down at him while Remus knelt down beside his head. Peter continued to laugh. 

“Beautiful landing,” James said. “Very well executed.”

“Fuck you,” Sirius said, and closed his eyes as he relaxed into the grass. “Can’t believe you idiots do that for fun.”

“Hey,” Remus said, and prodded Sirius's temple with his finger, “For your first time, I thought it was a pretty good effort.”

“Hmm,” James said, and Sirius opened his eyes to see a dangerously thoughtful look on his face. “Isn’t that what McKinnon said to you after that time in the astronomy tower?”

Sirius sat up and dove for James's legs, tackling him to the ground. 

James let out an “ _oof_ ” before falling on his back, and Sirius wrestled him on the grass and got him into a headlock. Remus and Peter laughed, and as Sirius mercilessly ground his knuckles into James's hair, he couldn’t help but think that things really did feel like they were finally back to normal. They were free to be fools again in each other’s company to the fullest extent, without the weight of old feuds brewing beneath. Sirius hadn’t realized how much he had missed feeling this free. 

James put up a valiant effort, but Sirius had always been just a little bit stronger. Eventually, seeing that the uneven match could still go on forever, because of both the participants' stubbornness, Remus put his hands on both of the boys’ shoulders to separate them. “Alright, I think that’s enough of that,” he said, though he was still smiling. 

James chuckled and readjusted his glasses. “Sorry, mum.”

Sirius wiped the grass off on the knees of his jeans and tossed his hair out of his face. “He attacked my _honor_ , Moony!” he protested, though he too was smiling. 

“I know,” Remus said, and offered a consoling pat on his shoulder. 

Sirius's smile turned into a grin. He still couldn’t believe Remus was talking to him again, let alone touching him. 

“If that’s all done with,” Peter butted in, “I’d very much like to get some food before I have to put up with any more of Prongs and Padfoot’s nonsense.”

Remus laughed. “I think I would too. It really makes one build up an appetite, dealing with the two of them doesn’t it?”

Peter nodded his head sagely, and James let out a series of objections, but they all made their way out of the castle’s courtyard, with Remus running back to the tree once they had reached the gate to go retrieve his book. 

It felt like they had, finally, reached their normal again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if this chapter seems a bit fluffy--this is very much the calm before the storm. One conflict resolved, another begins :3 Thanks for reading!


	4. Remus, Keeper of Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chunk of emotional plot begins! Hope you all enjoy!

**III**

**REMUS, KEEPER OF SECRETS**

They returned to the inn after that, deciding to take advantage of the free breakfast before heading out for the day. There were only a few other people staying at the inn, and so the piles of pastries and meats and fruits were theirs for the taking. Remus had a full serving of just about every different dish at the table, and Peter at least sampled all of them. Sirius loaded up on the different meats and fruit, while James attempted to get his fair share of the sweets (although Madame Lalande seemed determined to clear James's plate away even when there was plenty of food still on it. James had grumbled and ended up pilfering off of Sirius's plate.)

Sirius had suggested they go to the town center, to which James vehemently agreed, seeing as the apothecary, and the attractive witch that worked the counter, would be there. (Remus gave Sirius a thankful glance over the table, and Sirius returned it with a small smile.) After that they decided they would go to the beach and finally enjoy the ocean on what was supposed to be one of the hottest days of the summer. (The fact that this may have served as an excuse for James to attempt flirting again, with significantly less clothing for both parties, caused him to enthusiastically agree again.)

The town center was about half-way up the hillside, above where the inn was situated. It was a small square with a large statue of Morgan Le Fae at the center, surrounded on all sides by the most pristine (and expensive) of the shops. 

Peter was immediately enamored by the higher polish of the buildings of the square in comparison to the rustic charm of the rest of the town. “Amazing!” he exclaimed, turning around to take in a full panorama of the scene. “Isn’t this amazing?”

“Yeah Wormy,” Sirius drawled, “it’s real pretty.” 

Peter gave him a very tired glare. 

“I think it’s brilliant,” James said, peering through the apothecary window and doing a sweeping search of the store within. “Really, really… brilliant…”

“Fuck’s sake just go in,” Sirius said, and pushed James lightly on the back. 

James laughed. “Fine, fine!” He glanced at his reflection in the window, mussed up his hair and then went inside the shop. 

The other three exchanged varying degrees of eye rolls before following him inside. 

The apothecary retained the quaint charm of the rest of the town, though, like the rest of the square, it was clearly more geared towards guests and residents with money to spare. The wooden shelves were polished to a deep brown, and not a speck of dust fell upon the long wooden tables filled with other supplies. The store carried everything from lavender-infused beauty treatment potions to various luxury food items, neatly packaged in glass jars, all with calligraphic prices written on browned, expensive paper and tied around the product with twine. Despite its higher finish, it was still undeniably a cozy space to be in. 

James saw the blonde witch at the counter and swatted at Sirius's arm to get his attention. “There she is,” he whispered.

Sirius looked between the girl and James and patted him on the back. “Good luck, mate. You’re gonna need it.”

James jerked himself free from Sirius's patronizing hand and strode over to the counter. Sirius decided not to watch this particular embarrassment, and took to browsing the shelves. 

Though he was in absolutely no need of anything the store had to offer, Sirius had to admit the store was amusing to browse. As he looked over various bottled health potions, he could see Peter out of the corner of his eye picking up and smelling all of the different soaps in the display, and could hear James bumbling through French with the witch at the counter. 

“I can’t read any of these labels,” Remus's voice came from behind him. 

Sirius turned to see Remus with his hands stuffed into his jean pockets, looking defeated. “Everything’s in French. They say Latin will help, but it never really does, does it?”

Sirius laughed. “I’ll tell you what everything is,” he said, and walked over with him to the section labeled “ _Health_ ”. 

There were rows of shelves filled with various potions and salves for treating everything from oily skin and limp hair to magical boils and pock marks. Sirius read through the shelves rapidly before coming upon a small jar of salve labeled ‘ _Burn Banishment_ ’ in French. “Here we go,” Sirius said, picking it up and reading its properties. “Says it clears magical burns in… hours. There,” he said, and gave it to Remus with a smile. 

Remus smiled back. “Thank you, that’s perfect,” he said, and turned the jar around in his hands. Suddenly his smile vanished, and his mouth formed a thin frown. “Well. Almost perfect,” he said, and turned the price label towards Sirius. 

Sirius had to do a double take at the number written on the label of the small jar. “Shit” he muttered. “That’s… huh.”

Remus shook his head and put the jar back on the shelf. “It’s fine. Let’s just see if there’s a cheaper version.”

“Ok,” Sirius nodded, and continued to scan the shelves. He got to the bottom row, though, and all he could find were salves that were multi-purpose, and promised less impressive, immediate results with burns.

Sirius knew that Remus's family was the least wealthy out of the four of them. Granted, everyone looked a little wanting for money when compared to the Noble House of Black, but the Potters were very comfortable in their own right, and Peter’s father was a member of the Wizengamot. Both Remus's parents worked incredibly hard to be able to provide for themselves and Remus. Sirius remembers Remus telling him about having a muggle “summer job” during the summer of third year—something Sirius had never even conceived would be a necessary thing for a person to have. 

But Remus always refused to be given any amount of money by his friends, even if it was just for treats during Hogsmeade trips. He wore second-hand robes and never complained or bemoaned them, choosing instead to not dwell on material things in the same way the other boys did. He carried no shame in the matter, because he refused to see the shame in the circumstance. 

And so Sirius knew he was going to have to stand firm on what he was about to say. He took the jar back off the shelf and turned it over in his hands. “I’ll get it.”

Remus sighed. “Sirius—”

“You shouldn’t even have to be buying it in the first place,” Sirius said, looking at Remus. “It shouldn’t be something you spend your trip money on.”

Remus held Sirius's gaze, still frowning, though he said nothing yet to protest.

“Besides,” Sirius said with a small shrug, “between the four of us, we’re bound to need something like this again sometime soon. It’ll be an investment.”

Remus finally quirked a smile at that, but he still looked unsure. “...I’m sure the other products would be just as good,” he said. 

“Well, they don’t work nearly as fast,” Sirius said, “And like I said, you shouldn’t have to bother in the first place.”

“You really don’t have to,” Remus said, quieter. “I can just find something else to use.”

“Too bad,” Sirius said, remaining steadfast. “I want to.”

Remus sighed again. “Fine,” he relented, and he looked a mixture of relieved and guilty. “Don’t tell the others, ok?”

Sirius smiled. “’Course not,” he said, and walked up to the counter.

James was still attempting to speak to the woman at the counter, who, Sirius noticed upon closer inspection, was probably in her twenties. He heard James say something along the lines of “ _Do you eat foods_ ” in French, and decided it would be a mercy to cut in. 

_“Excuse me,”_ Sirius said, (James gave him an annoyed look, while the witch at the counter looked incredibly thankful) _“I think I’d like to buy this.”_

The woman happily walked over to the end of the counter that Sirius was on. “ _Thirty monnaie, please_.”

Sirius nodded and took out the appropriate amount of coins he had exchanged at King’s Cross from the bundle the Potters had given him. 

“ _Is that your friend?_ ” the woman asked, giving James a judgmental side-long glance.

Sirius snorted. “ _Yeah. Sorry about him_.”

The woman shook her head. “ _His French is **terrible**_ ,” she said, and gave Sirius his change. 

Sirius laughed. “ _I know. Good guy once you get to know him, though,_ ” he said. “ _At least in English_.”

“ _I’m sure_ ,” the woman said, though she sounded unconvinced. “ _How old are you all anyway, fourteen?_ ”

Sirius gave her an offended look. “ _I’ll have you know we are all a very mature sixteen, thank you very much._ ”

The witch gave a snort and nodded. “ _Right. Have a nice day, then._ ”

~~~

“I nearly had it!” James complained the moment they were out the shop door. “Why’d you have to butt in?”

“Prongs, she was out of _all_ of our leagues,” Sirius said. “There was no way that was going to end in any way but tragedy.”

“Uhg,” James groaned, turning his face up towards the sky in exasperation. “What’d you buy, anyway?”

“Soap,” Sirius said, without hesitation. “I had to buy _something_. You were keeping the poor woman captive.”

“We were having a very lovely chat,” James insisted, but by the rosy tint to his cheeks Sirius knew James was aware of how poorly it had gone. 

Sirius patted him on the shoulder. “Maybe just hold off on the French for a bit. I don’t think it’s doing you any favors.”

James grumbled and stuffed his hands into his pockets. 

They explored the rest of the town center for about an hour before walking back to the inn. By then it was around noon, and the sun was beaming down hot enough that they all decided it was high time they headed to the beach. 

There was no shortage of beaches to choose from at Ville de Morgaine—the entirety of the southern edge of town sloped down to cliffs that then dropped down to bright colored sand and calm blue waters. But with the weather being what it was, it seemed most of the town had their idea to cool down by the waters as well, so it took them a while of wandering before they came upon a fairly secluded cove with only a few people sunning themselves on the sands as company. 

Sirius grinned at the pristine isolation of the beach. “Excellent,” he said, and walked over to a spot shaded by the surrounding cliffs. 

Remus walked over with him and spread out the spare bed sheet they had used for the impromptu feast the night before. “I’m surprised more people haven’t found this spot,” he said, taking his enormous book out of his bag and sitting down on the blanket. “It’s so peaceful.”

“Well, at least it was before we got here,” James said with a grin as he pulled off his shirt. “Come on Padfoot, I’ll race you to the rocks.”

Sirius smiled and began to take off his shirt as well, but hesitated. Remus was sitting contentedly on the blanket with his book in hand, but he still had the bandages around his neck and arm. It would be an hour before the burns would be completely gone. And while he knew Remus was usually quite happy to be left alone to read, he felt a pang of guilt at leaving him there while the rest of them dashed off into the waves. “Actually,” he said, sitting down beside Remus, “I think I’m gonna take in the sun for a bit.”

James shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I expect a race later, though.”

“I’ll race you!” Peter said, taking off his own shirt. 

Sirius barked out a laugh. “That’s not gonna be much of a contest, is it?”

Peter kicked sand over into Sirius’ face, and Sirius sputtered.

James laughed. “Well let’s see about that!” he said, dashing off towards the water. “Come on, Wormy!”

“Hey wait!” Peter called, and ran after him. 

Sirius spit out the last grains of sand that were in his mouth and laid back on his elbows. “Prick,” he muttered. 

“You know you started that, right?” came Remus’ admonishing tone, though he was smiling. 

“Yeah yeah,” Sirius said, and closed his eyes. He tilted back his head, taking in the sea breeze that washed over them. 

Remus shook his head and opened his book. He shifted his position so he was laying on his stomach, propped up on his elbows next to Sirius. “...you don’t have to sit with me, if you don’t want to,” he said, more to the dog-eared pages of his book than to Sirius. 

Sirius blinked and looked over to Remus, who didn’t look over to him. “What? No, I… I want to. Relax a bit before swimming, that is,” he said. 

Remus’s lips twitched up in a smile. “If you say so.”

The waves were calm, making rhythmic washing sounds as they lapped up against the bright yellow sand. Sirius saw James triumphantly fist pump as he reached the rocks on the other side of the beach, with Peter still about three yards behind him. Peter looked happy enough, regardless, as James seemed to be showing him a specific stroke that would make him glide through the water faster. 

“Tell me about it,” Sirius said, and he looked back over to Remus. “Your book.”

Remus looked up at him, squinting slightly against the sun. “You want to hear about my book?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said with a small shrug. “Must be good. You’ve been reading it all day. What’s it about?”

Remus laughed a little, and closed the book. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” he said. “It’s a muggle book,” he said.

“I figured that much,” Sirius said with a snort. Remus always had a stack of muggle books from home that he brought with him to school. He went through them so fast he often had to write home and ask his mother to send him more, which she of course did happily. He let the others peruse some of them, and got a good laugh out of how confused some of them got by trying to read them. Some books he hoarded like precious objects, though, and wouldn’t let any of the others read. He even slept with some under his pillow, after staying up late to finish ‘just one more chapter.’

Remus smiled more. “Well here,” he said, and handed him the giant book. “You try reading a bit. You’ll see what I mean.”

Sirius raised a brow but rose to the challenge and took the book, opening it to a random page. He began reading a paragraph, and then began again, thinking he must have missed something. But the sentences progressed in relentless, seemingly incoherent fashion, and he eventually just shook his head. “Merlin, was he ill??” he exclaimed, handing the book back to Remus. 

Remus laughed. “Told you,” he said. “It’s called _Ulysses_. Very famous muggle book.”

“How did enough people _read_ it for it to become famous?” Sirius asked, bewildered. 

Remus, though, looked happier than ever. “Well, people tried to edit it a lot, actually. And censor it,” he said. He carried on, talking about the various publishing hurdles the book had to go through over the years, and he had a smile through all of it. 

Sirius listened as Remus went on about the book, asking questions here and there, but he really only did so because of how happy it seemed to make Remus. Sirius found everything interesting, but seeing Remus talk animatedly about something that he enjoyed had always been particularly satisfying for Sirius. The way Remus’s eyes lit up, and he spoke with his hands, sometimes touching Sirius’s arm when he wanted to make a point… he supposed he hadn’t realized how much he missed it. 

James and Peter eventually ran back over to them, dripping wet and grinning. James purposefully shook his messy hair out right over Sirius’s face, cutting through the small space Sirius and Remus had created for themselves. 

Sirius shoved James away as he wiped the saltwater from his face. “Wanker,” he muttered. 

“Come on,” James said, ignoring him, “you two have got to join us some time.”

“We will!” Sirius insisted. “Moony’s just telling me about James Joy first.”

“James _Joyce_ ,” Remus corrected, though he smiled.

“Sounds like you’re a real quick study,” James said, putting his hand on Sirius’s shoulder and shaking it. “Come onnnn.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, but glanced over to Remus, to gauge his reaction. 

Remus seemed to take James and Peter’s eagerness in stride, not looking particularly bothered at their insistence, though Remus never seemed bothered by things that he had every right to be bothered about. He felt at the bandage around his neck and shrugged. “I’ll join you in a moment,” he said. “Just let me take these off first.” 

Sirius smiled, and began taking off his shirt. “Ok ok,” he conceded, and stood from the blanket. 

James raised his fist triumphantly. “Yes! Come on, you’ve gotta see this piece of driftwood Wormtail found, it looks just like McGonagall when she’s making that pissy face.”

Sirius laughed and tossed his shirt onto the blanket, following after James and Peter. Remus followed soon after them, bandage free for the first time since the start of their trip. But he kept his t-shirt on. Sirius was about to make a teasing remark about it, but he remembered that they were not entirely alone on the beach. 

The bite mark, (or The Chomp, as they had all come to lovingly refer to it after James had called it that third year) wasn’t a scar Remus could easily explain away, especially in mixed wizarding company. It was so much larger than the rest of his scars, and cut crescent-like into his abdomen. Along with the angry, savagely ragged teeth marks, there was a discoloration that spread, mottled and dark, from the scar. The closer it got to the full, the darker it would get. Sometimes, Sirius saw that the discoloration grew, spreading across his entire torso. It seemed to consume him when he transformed. 

It hadn’t occurred to him that Remus would have more obstacles in place with something as simple as going to the beach with friends. And though he hadn’t ended up saying anything about it, he still felt bad that he had thought about it at all. 

“Yep. That’s the face,” Remus said as James showed them the piece of driftwood. “Uncanny, actually.”

“Isn’t it?” James agreed with a laugh. 

“Should we bring it back to school with us?” Peter asked, grinning. “Put it on the window sill in a place of honor?”

“Brilliant,” James said. “We can use it to scare the first years. And dress it up for the holidays!”

Once James had tucked the upsetting piece of driftwood away in his bag, they all headed back to the water. It was cold, but comfortable—not nearly as frigid as any of the beaches Sirius had been to in England. 

“So what,” James said to him as they treaded water once they got further away from the shore, “posh boy can’t climb a tree but he can swim just fine?”

“Shut up!” Sirius shouted back, and dunked James’s head underwater with a laugh.

“You think the water’s deep enough to dive into from the rocks?” Remus asked, nodding his head over towards the grouping of rocks that jutted out of the water. 

James shook his hair dry, sending salt water into Sirius’ face once more. “I bet it is,” James said. “Wait, can you dive, Moony? Like, a proper dive?”

“Yeah,” Remus said smiling. “Have you tried before?”

“No,” James said with a laugh. “Never have.”

“Me neither,” said Peter. “Moony, you should teach us!”

Remus laughed. “Alright, if you want,” he said. “I can’t say I’m an expert, though.”

“Nonsense,” James called, beginning to swim over to the rocks. “You’re an expert on everything.”

“Potions, Prongs.”

“Everything that _matters!_ ” he clarified, and grabbed hold of one of the lower rocks. 

They all swam over to the rocks and climbed up them. There was enough space for them to all stand relatively comfortably on top, and they all watched as Remus demonstrated how to push off from the rock with their feet and into a dive. 

“So if you get enough of a push,” Remus said, kneeling on one leg with his hands in front of him, “you just have to put your hands out in front of you to cut through the water.”

“Care to demonstrate, then, Professor Moony?” Sirius teased with a smile. “Since you’re the expert?”

“That’s Professor Lupin to you, Black,” he said back. “Ten points from Gryffindor for speaking out of turn.” And with that he pushed off of the rock into a perfectly arked dive, into the water below. 

Sirius and the others leaned over to see that he had barely made a splash at all after entering the water so smoothly. He emerged yards away, flipping his hair away from his face with a grin Sirius could all but feel even from the rocks. “See?” he called. “Easy!”

James whistled. “That was brilliant!”

Peter clapped and cheered. “Amazing!”

“I thought your form needed work!” Sirius called with a grin. 

Remus laughed and began swimming back towards the rocks. 

They all tried after that. Peter eagerly volunteered first, though his dive turned into more of a belly flop. James went next, over rotating his body mid air so his legs went over his head and landed more in a half-flip. 

When it was Sirius’ turn, Remus smiled up at him. “You can do it!” he called. He wasn’t sure Remus had given encouragement to the others.

But as Sirius was pushing off the rock, James yelled “LOOK OUT!” making him panic and falter mid-dive, splashing into the water inelegantly. 

When Sirius emerged to the surface James was howling with laughter, Peter and Remus laughing along beside him. “You should have seen your face!” James said between breaths. 

“Fuck you!” Sirius laughed back, and proceeded to dunk James underneath the water again. 

As they continued to grapple, Remus laughed. “Well, you’re all terrible students,” he said. 

“Come on,” Peter said, “let’s try it again!”

They climbed and re-climbed the rocks, Remus patiently going through the steps of how to push off and extend one’s arms each time. Eventually they were passable enough at it, and proceeded to try new, absurd dives that they had made up themselves. James tried to do a flip on several occasions and failed miserably each, while Sirius had moved on to trying to perfect the cannonball for maximum splashing. 

Remus, it seemed, had been holding out during the initial demonstration. Sirius watched, somewhat in awe, as Remus executed a backflip off the rocks, his muscles tensing visibly beneath his shirt as he pushed off and swung his arms backwards to propel him. Sirius had never seen Remus display such outward athleticism before, but he supposed he knew Remus was capable of it. It had just… never been as overt before. 

“Where the hell did you learn how to do that?” Sirius asked as Remus’s head emerged from the water.

Remus pushed his hair away from his face and shrugged. “Long summers, I guess. Had to amuse myself somehow.” 

“Shame you hate flying,” James said, “I bet you’d come up with some wild moves on a broomstick.”

Remus shuddered. “No, thank you. Diving is where I draw the line. I’ll leave the rest of the death-defying aerial stunts to you and… Padfoot…” he trailed off at the end of the sentence, suddenly looking incredibly guilty. 

James looked between him and Remus with a similar face. And Sirius was about to ask what was wrong until he remembered he had been kicked off the Quidditch team at the end of term.

He knew it would hurt more once the season started up again, but in the moment Sirius found that he surprisingly didn’t care much at all. “I’ll have to try out for Moony’s diving team next term, eh?” he said, giving Remus a smile.

Remus looked surprised for a moment, but then returned his smile. 

“Yeah, diving into the Black Lake sounds like great fun,” James said, and through his sarcasm Sirius saw that James too was smiling at him. “The squid can keep score and everything.”

“It could give perfect tens!” Peter laughed, wiggling his fingers like tentacles. “Though it’d probably only need five when scoring Sirius.”

James let out a surprised laugh at Peter’s targeted quip. Sirius splashed Peter in the face. 

They were swimming back over for another round of dives when something caught James’s eye, and Sirius saw him crane his neck around the rocks. 

“Well,” James said, a grin spreading across his face. “Looks like we have more company.”

Sirius followed James’s gaze and saw a group of four girls walking along the beach, chattering away and setting up blankets along the beach. “I swear you have a condition. It’s like you’re sniffing them out.” Sirius said, rolling his eyes. Though he had to admit they all seemed very attractive. 

“Merlin,” Peter groaned. “One’s a ginger.”

“Oh shut up,” James said, waving both their comments away. “Moony, you have any words of wisdom?”

Remus, who was perched on a rock with his knees tucked up under his chin, just blinked at James. “Just in general? Or about something specific.”

“About how to _talk_ to them,” James said, sounding almost exasperated. And in that moment, Sirius couldn’t deny that a stag was the most fitting animal for James’s animagus form—an insistently grand thing, prone to displays of bravery and foolhardiness in front of potential mates. “I mean, you’ve got your own group that follows you around. You must have some ideas.”

“They’re not _my_ group,” Remus said, his tone a little sharper. “They’re just people. Go talk to them.”

“Well that’s easy for you to say,” Peter grumbled. “You’ve probably snogged half our year already.”

“What??” Remus balked, turning to look at Peter. “Why do you say that?”

“Well,” Peter began, somewhat hesitantly now that Remus seemed to be perturbed, “we know you’re private, but… well, you must have been with loads of girls. They let you into their groups.”

“So you, what,” Remus huffed, “think I’m some secret… _lothario_ , because I speak to girls sometimes?” He raised his voice then, and looked between them all with a rising anger in his eyes. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Peter tried to explain. 

“Yeah mate,” Sirius said, and tried to break the uncomfortable tension with humor. “I don’t think Pete even knows what a lothario is.” 

“Unbelievable,” Remus muttered, and climbed down from the rock. “You have fun making fools of yourselves,” he said, hopping back into the water. 

“Moony, wait,” James sighed, reaching out a hand to stop him. 

But Remus had already begun swimming back to shore, resolutely ignoring any calls for him to wait. 

James frowned, and looked between Sirius and Peter. “What was that about, do you think?”

“I have no idea,” Peter said, putting up his hands as if to proclaim his innocence. “I was just trying to clarify!”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed, looking back over to Remus, who was nearly to the shore, wading in the shallows back towards their blanket and bags. “Should we go after him?”

“I dunno,” James said, looking over at Remus as well. “Maybe he just needs a minute.”

Sirius hummed, and thought for a moment. “...You guys go ahead,” he said, waving towards the girls on the beach. 

It took a moment for James to realize what Sirius meant, and he tilted his head in confusion. “Really? Mate, _look_ at them.”

“I’m gonna go check on Moony,” he said, shaking his head. “We have a whole continent to get turned down on ahead of us.”

“Alright,” James said, and looked over to Peter. “Guess it’s just you and me, Wormy.”

Sirius held back a snort at that. He looked back over to Remus, who had sat back down on the blanket and re-opened his book, though Sirius doubted he had begun reading in earnest. He took a deep breath and submerged himself beneath the water behind the rocks, and when he re-emerged, it was as a giant black dog. 

He paddled over to the shore easily, the waves calm enough that they aided in pushing him towards the beach. (Sirius thought idly it might actually be easier to swim as a dog than as a human; it was far more instinctual, even if it was a bit slower.) By the time he got to the shore he was thoroughly drenched, and he gave his coat a good shake before trotting over to Remus.

Remus raised his head from his book as Sirius neared and sighed. “I don’t want to talk about—” but then he stopped, and narrowed his eyes in scrutiny. “Right. That’s why you’re a dog, isn’t it.”

Sirius laid down on the blanket beside Remus, looking up at him through his dripping wet black fur. 

“Clever,” Remus said, and glanced over to James and Peter, who had just approached the group of girls. Sirius could hear them speaking to each other; James had said something, and the girls had laughed. 

“Go over there,” Remus said, opening his book again. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Sirius let out a low whine and rested his head on Remus’s outstretched leg. 

Remus huffed and shook his head. “Really, it’s fine,” he said, and looked down at the pages in his lap. “Go on.”

Sirius let out a snort and raised his head from Remus’s leg. He could tell Remus was upset, but by what he still hadn’t a clue. It was clear that he wasn’t going to elaborate on it, though. 

Sirius got up from the blanket and trotted away down the beach. He passed James and Peter and the girls, but paid them no mind as he sought out an adequately sized piece of driftwood from where they had found the McGonagall shaped one, picked it up in his teeth and ran back over to Remus. 

He plopped the stick down on the blanket next to Remus’s foot, and Remus looked down at it for a moment in surprise. “Are you… _really_?” he asked, looking back at Sirius. 

Sirius barked and wagged his tail. 

Remus laughed a little, and picked up the stick. “Alright then,” he said, and tossed the stick down the beach. 

Sirius bounded down the beach and caught the stick in the air before it hit the ground. He pranced back over, tail wagging and decidedly proud.

Remus laughed in earnest then. “Don’t get too cocky, that was an easy throw,” he said, and took back the stick when Sirius presented it. He stood up from the blanket and threw it harder and lower down the beach.

Sirius dashed after it but was only able to pick it up from the ground after skidding to a stop in the sand. He shook his fur free of the sand and ran back over to Remus, and barked after he plopped the stick back down. 

“I told you it would get harder,” Remus laughed, and picked up the stick again. “I’ll give you a head start this time.”

They went back and forth like that several times, Remus throwing the stick at increasingly difficult angles and Sirius barking in protest whenever he deemed a throw too unfair. Sirius could see by the smile on Remus’s face that he was already feeling better, however. Whatever resentment that he had shown by the rocks had evidently receded to the back of his mind. 

Eventually, James, Peter, and the group of girls actually came over to them. And again, Sirius noticed that the girls were a group of particularly attractive friends. They seemed quite out of James’s league, but apparently they had gotten on well enough to follow him back to their blanket. 

“We just had to say hello to your dog,” one girl, with a long dark ponytail and a cute, upturned nose said. She spoke with a light accent that Sirius just knew endeared her to James. “He’s adorable.”

“He’s very friendly,” James said, patting Sirius on the head with a grin. 

Sirius let out a whine that sounded like a grumble, and looked back over to Remus. 

Remus stood behind Sirius, away from the group, and gave a small smile. “I’m sure he’d let you play fetch with him.”

Sirius noticed how Remus made no move to go over to James and Peter, how he electively hung back from them all in a way that seemed almost resigned. It wasn’t the frustration he expressed earlier, but he could tell he wasn’t thrilled.

“Oh, could we?” Another girl, this time a redhead, asked, smiling. 

Sirius decided to let out a yawn, and stretched before lying down on the blanket.

One girl laughed. “It looks like he’s a little too tired for that,” she said. 

“Nah,” James insisted, kneeling down next to Sirius. “He’s just being dramatic, aren’t you, Snuffles?” he asked rather pointedly.

Sirius let out another grumbling sound and stretched his front legs out once more before closing his eyes. 

He heard Remus snort from behind him.

“That’s alright,” the girl with the ponytail said sweetly, kneeling down to scratch behind Sirius’s ears. “We’ll let him rest. He looks like he worked very hard.” 

“What a well behaved boy,” said the redhead with a laugh, as she leaned down to pet him as well.

“That’s Snuffles for you,” James said, and Sirius noticed the dryness in his tone. 

“Real ladies man, isn’t he?” Peter said, sounding decidedly annoyed.

The girls laughed, and James invited them on a longer walk down the beach. They happily agreed, and Remus, after turning down Peter’s invitation to join them to keep an eye on “Snuffles,” sat back down on the blanket next to Sirius. 

Once they had left, Remus let out a small laugh, and turned to Sirius. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

Sirius opened his eyes and put his head back on Remus’s leg. 

Remus sighed, and looked over to the waves gently lapping at the shoreline. The sun was a little lower in the sky, and it had given the water a much deeper blue color. “...I didn’t mean to get upset,” he said quietly. 

Sirius blinked up at him, waiting for him to finish. 

“It’s just… well,” he paused for a moment, and Sirius thought he looked as if he were thinking very hard about what to say next. His brow was furrowed, and his hand fidgeted with the blanket beneath him. “That’s not why I came on this trip. I don’t mind that James, or the rest of you, want to… you know,” he said, gesturing vaguely over to where James and Peter had left, “go off with girls. But it’s not my…” he stopped again, and Sirius could sense that his heartbeat was quickening. “It’s different for me,” he rushed out. “With being a werewolf, I mean. I can’t just casually go off with people. They start asking questions.” 

Remus seemed as if he was trying very hard not to look at Sirius when he spoke, his eyes resolutely fixed on the horizon. “So I haven’t um… been with any girls. Like you all thought. Because of… that.” He flicked an apparently offensive grain of sand off of his knee and towards the ocean. “Being a werewolf.”

Sirius thought it was odd, the way Remus seemed so self-conscious about what he had just said. He had spoken about his condition with resignation, and certainly hesitance, before, but this was the first time in a long while that he seemed anxious about the way Sirius would receive it. Perhaps he was just… embarrassed, about the admission of his inexperience. Which, again, had never seemed to particularly bother Remus before. 

But after everything the two of them had gone through the past year, Sirius had come to realize that there were parts of Remus’s life that he was perhaps never going to fully understand. And he was fine with that. All he wanted to do was try to be there for him when he had moments of doubt. And so he allowed himself a wag of his tail, and a re-adjustment of his head upon Remus’s leg. He hoped it showed that he was supportive, even if he didn’t understand. 

Remus let out a sigh, and he sounded relieved, though he didn’t quite look it yet. “Thank you,” he said, and gave Sirius a light pat on the head.

Sirius wagged his tail more, and closed his eyes again, letting the sun warm his still damp fur. 

Remus began reading again, and they stayed on the blanket in companionable silence. 

Eventually, James and Peter came back from their walk with the group of girls, the six of them laughing and talking. They parted ways by the girls’ blanket, and James and Peter came back to Sirius and Remus with matching grins. “They said we could _owl_ them,” James said proudly. 

Remus laughed. “How forward of them,” he said, and closed his book. 

“Hey,” James protested, “I’m counting that as a ringing endorsement. That’s an open invitation for further communication!”

Remus laughed and put his book into his bag. “Good for you, Prongs,” he said, and smiled back at James and Peter. “And Wormtail. Really.”

Peter gave Remus an apologetic smile. “...Are you doing ok, Moony?”

Remus nodded. “Yes. Sorry, just…” he looked down at Sirius, “worn out, is all.”

“No worries, mate,” James said, and he too, looked apologetic. “Sorry we riled you up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Remus said, and looked out at the darkening waters of the beach. “Should we head back to town?”

“I think so. Getting kind of late,” James agreed, and then raised a brow at Sirius, who was still lounging on the blanket. “We’ve gotta find a rock Snuffles can change behind, though. I am _not_ carrying his bag for him.”

Sirius barked, and hoped it sounded sufficiently indignant. 

They packed up their things from the beach and began walking, with James thrusting Sirius’s bag at him the moment he transformed back into a human. Remus seemed to be in a better mood on the way back, and started talking with Peter on their hike back into town.

“So,” James asked Sirius in a low voice, as they walked a few paces behind the others back to the inn. “Did he tell you what that was about?”

“I think so,” Sirius answered, looking at Remus laugh at something Peter had said. “I think he’ll tell us more, when he’s ready.”

James nodded, content enough with Sirius’s explanation. “I just wish he knew he didn’t have to keep things from all of us,” James said, looking over at Remus and Peter. 

Sirius studied Remus then, who was listening to Peter regale him with the particulars of the encounter with the girls with a smile. Though he seemed perfectly happy, Sirius knew by now that that wasn’t always the case. Remus was a person with several masks he had to wear in his life. And he hoped, like James, that he didn’t feel he needed one with them. 


	5. The Other One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY I totally forgot to update yesterday! This next chapter's pretty long, and a big one plot-wise, so I hope that makes up for it!
> 
> (Also if anyone picks up on where the secret wizarding street is located in Zurich, and what's ACTUALLY there in real life... you get a high five.)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

IV  
THE OTHER ONE

They checked out of the inn the next morning. The train ride to Zurich was six hours along the Continental Wizarding Rail, and they intended to get an earlier start so that they could settle in to the hostel room and explore both the Muggle and Wizarding sections of the city.

There was no love lost with Madame Lalande when she saw that James was finally leaving the inn. She had muttered to Sirius as he had handed back the key to “keep an eye on your vulgar friend,” which Sirius solemnly vowed he would do. She glared at James as he exited the inn, and Sirius and Remus and Peter could hardly keep themselves from laughing. 

“Don’t worry,” Sirius said to James as they headed back towards the station. “I’m sure she’d love an owl from you too.”

Remus and Peter laughed as James aimed a kick at Sirius’s shins. 

This was the first place on the trip they would be spending a significant amount of time in Muggle-populated areas of the city, and so Remus, mercifully, said he was open to questions the other three boys had in terms of decorum and customs.

Sirius could tell Remus had vastly underestimated the severity of what he had agreed to. 

“So, telephones,” James had said in the train compartment, with the air of someone who was posing a deep philosophical question, “how many does a Muggle have on them at any given time? Three? Four?”

Remus frowned. “On them? I mean, a house usually has one line. Maybe another phone in a different room. Depending on the business, they might have more than a few as well.”

“And telephones,” Peter interjected, looking especially thoughtful, “they operate with...electricity, right?”

“Well,” Remus began, his frown deepening, “yes, they do. But there’s several more things that—”

“Ah,” James interjected, a proud smile on his face, “I heard that electricity is just a theory. Isn’t that right, Moony?”

“So, what,” Sirius asked, his arms folded, “they just made up a reason for why things run the way they do? Sounds like magic to me.”

“That’s not…” Remus took a deep breath. “‘Theory’ doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have any evidence behind it, it just means—”

“OH,” Peter said, his eyes widening in realization, “‘Electricity’ is just their word for Magic! That makes so much more sense.”

“Alright,” Remus said with an air of finality. “I’m just going to give you all a reading list,” he said, pulling out a page from his notebook. “Just… don’t bring up electricity if you have to talk with any muggles.” He began scribbling down a list with his pencil and then paused. “Actually… I’ll make a whole list of things you shouldn’t bring up with muggles.”

Sirius, James and Peter all exchanged shrugs, and Remus let out a sigh as he continued to scribble furiously onto his paper. 

Their train arrived at the Wizarding platform of the Hauptbahnhof (which James and Sirius went back and forth saying several times in increasingly poor German accents) in the early afternoon, and from there it was a short walk through the Old Town towards the hidden, winding Wizarding street of Alte Hexenstraße. (A name which, again, James and Sirius repeated several times over.)

Despite being a similarly ancient city, Sirius was struck by how much older Zurich felt than London. The buildings were so tightly packed together, and ascended the uneven cobblestone streets in a mass of disparate colors. Everything echoed off the narrow alleyways and stone of the streets, the ringing of church bells and clock towers hammering around long after they had been sounded. He felt like he had been thrust back several centuries at least, the only thing grounding him to the present James’s figure in front of them, his nose in a map leading them every which way down the cobblestone streets. 

“You sure you know where you’re going, mate?” Sirius asked, leaning over James’s shoulder to look at the map.

James yanked the map out of Sirius’s view. “They just hide everything really well! We’re supposed to be coming up on a brick wall in an alley…” he frowned and looked up around him. “...But I guess that’s every alley wall here, isn’t it?”

“Can I take a look?” Remus asked. 

James sighed and handed the map over to him. “Sure. Let’s see if our Master Cartographer can figure it out.”

“Let me know if you need any help reading the squiggly writing,” Sirius offered with a smile. 

Remus laughed. “I will,” he said, and bent his head down to study the map. 

The Marauders Map, a labor of love they had been designing since their second year at school, was by the end of their fifth year mostly complete. It had been born of grand intentions for mischief making, and had eventually snowballed into a massive undertaking involving painstaking measurements and to-scale representations of every secret passageway in the castle. James and Sirius had been first and foremost in charge of finding the hidden passageways, and Peter, by the time he had become an Animagus, was able to scale along smaller areas and openings in the old castle to make sure they hadn’t missed an inch. Remus took it upon himself to try and pull together all of their findings into one coherent blueprint, as no one else had ever bothered studying architectural drawings or old maps before, and Remus was the most eager to do so. 

At the start of fifth year, Sirius had become convinced that the map didn’t look nearly as distinguished as it ought to, and offered his skills in penmanship for all of the labels. Though James and Peter had given him hell for being able to write so fancifully, they had to admit it looked a great deal more professional than it had with all of the others’ illegible scribbling. 

Remus narrowed his eyes and tilted his head as he studied the map, which, Sirius thought to himself, looked rather canine-like. He lifted his head and peered around the street corner they were on, studying the old signs on the sides of the buildings. “It should be in a little alley by Spiegel...gasse…” he said, looking around. “I think we’re one street over from where we should be.”

“How are you figuring that?” Peter asked, peering over at the map. “Everything’s written so...tiny.”

“Eyes of a wolf, my friend,” Remus said easily, taking one more look at the intersecting streets. “This way,” he said, and nodded his head back down the alleyway. 

They came upon a small opening on the street Remus had walked them over to, and James pulled out another sheet of paper from his pocket. “Right, it says the combination to tap on the bricks is…” he studied the sheet for a moment, “four up from the bottom twice, three up from the bottom twice, then back and forth on the… Merlin this is long!”

Remus chuckled and glanced at the paper. “I think I’ve got it,” he said, kneeled down to tap at the bricks with his wand in the formation written down. He followed the instructions, tapping each brick stipulated the appropriate amount of times, and there was suddenly a humming sound that emanated from the bricks.

And then nothing.

James frowned, glancing from the paper to where Remus had been tapping with his wand. “What happened? It seemed like you got everything right.”

“I thought so too,” Remus said, and tried repeating the pattern again, a little more forcefully this time. Again, the brick wall emanated a humming sound, but then it quieted down nearly as instantly as they had started.

Sirius frowned as well, and knelt down beside Remus. “Let me try,” he offered, and tapped the same formation out along the bricks at the bottom. 

The bricks made the humming sound once more, but this time, spread apart to reveal an archway, not dissimilar to the one that led to Diagon Alley in London. 

James, Sirius, and Peter all exchanged confused looks.

“That’s odd,” James said, looking down at Remus and Sirius. 

Remus stood up and dusted off the knees of his pants. “It’s probably protected,” he said. “Not entirely surprised.”

“Protected?” Peter asked. “Against what?”

“Dark creatures,” Remus said, tucking his wand back into his pocket. He delivered it so casually, it was as if he were speaking about the weather.

James, Sirius, and Peter were all silent for a moment. 

“Fuck,” Sirius said after a moment, “That’s, Moony—”

“It’s not uncommon,” Remus said with a shrug, looking between them all. “An old city like this is bound to have some charms in place. Really, it’s nothing.” A small smile came onto his face then, and it seemed to be more for the others’ consolation than a genuine expression of ease. “Shall we?” 

The others exchanged looks once more. Sirius felt anger and bewilderment swirl about in his head. Had Remus encountered these kinds of defensive charms before? Or had he had to read about them in preparation for the trip? Either way Sirius found himself feeling guilty that he hadn’t considered it to be a possible problem that they would run into, and furious with the people who put up the defenses in the first place. The simple resignation on Remus’s face said that he had, unfortunately, already expected this kind of obstacle to be in place. 

“Right,” James said, with an apologetic look on his face. “Let’s go,” he said, and put his hand on Remus’s shoulder as he passed, pushing him through the archway alongside himself. 

Sirius smiled at James’s small gesture, and stepped through the archway, Peter following close behind.

Alte Hexenstraße looked much the same as the rest of Zurich’s Old Town, the only major distinguishing difference being that there were people walking about in Wizard robes as well as various styles of Muggle clothing. There were shops selling much the same wares that Diagon Alley offered, though with elegant painted signs in French and German proclaiming their wares. The single hostel was located near the far end of the street, wedged between a robes shop and bar, just slightly taller than its neighboring buildings. 

Thankfully, the old wizard at the front desk of the hostel spoke French, and so Sirius communicated once again their room needs and was presented with keys (four this time, along with separate keys for bag lockers). The room they were offered was one with four beds again, this time in bunks, this time accompanied by a small kitchenette as well as a bathroom. 

“Top bunk,” both James and Sirius said the moment they entered the room, and hurriedly put their bags on top of the respective beds. 

“No fair,” Peter whined, as he shuffled to the bed beneath James’s.

“I’m sure there’ll be other bunk beds,” Remus said, taking the space below Sirius’s. “I don’t know about you all,” he said, turning to the others, “but I could use a drink.”

James smiled. “I think that sounds brilliant.” 

~~~

Old Town, to the East side of the river, wasn’t considered by its surrounding inhabitants to be a particularly decorous part of the city. The muggle area surrounding Alte Hexenstraße was populated by various dive bars and clubs, interspersed with a wide assortment of restaurants and cafes, which lent itself to coming particularly alive in the evenings.

They eventually came upon a large bar, buzzing with people, with several large wooden tables and booths in the back. The lights were dim, but the walls were illuminated to showcase the hundreds of bottles of alcohol they served. The bar at the front was densely populated with young people trying to get the bartenders’ attention, and laughing and chatting away in groups. There was a small band playing in the back, with a female singer swaying her hips along to the soft rock coming from the stage.

“How’s this for a start to the night?” James said over the noise.

“Perfect,” said Sirius with a smile. 

“What?” Peter called, cupping his ear.

Remus laughed. “I think there’s a table at the back,” he said, and pointed towards an empty wooden booth. 

They elected for Sirius to go up to the bar and order a pint for everyone, on the off-chance the bartender spoke French, which they did not. After some expressive pointing and slowed down French (which the bartender didn’t seem to appreciate) Sirius came back to the table and shrugged. “I think they’re getting on it?”

James laughed. “What the hell did you say to him? He looked like you just told him you had slept with his mum.”

“I just asked if he spoke French!” Sirius said, throwing up his hands. “I didn’t think it was that bad!”

“I think it was the repeated, slowed-down French that got him,” Remus said, also laughing. 

“Well, you go up and get the drinks when they’re ready, then,” Sirius said with a huf as he sat down. 

Remus patted Sirius on the shoulder, which made Sirius grumble.

James was looking around the bar with wide eyes bright with excitement, as if he were a child seeing snowfall for the first time. “A Muggle bar, I can’t believe it,” he said.

Remus snorted. “It’s really not that different,” he said. 

“Are you joking? Everything’s different!” James exclaimed. “The drinks are different, all the clothing is different, look—that bartender is mixing a drink by hand! No magic!” He gestured over to a bartender who had just finished shaking a cocktail shaker and had begun to pour a lemon-colored drink into a garnished glass.

“Oh yes, thrilling,” Remus laughed. “What will he do next? Wipe the bar with a rag?”

Sirius and Peter laughed, but James rolled his eyes. “I just think it’s fascinating, is all!” he turned to Sirius and Peter. “Come on, this is something, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, looking around the bar. “It feels different, though I suppose it still just is a bunch of people getting drunk in the same building.”

“Ringing endorsement, Wormy,” Sirius laughed. “‘Feels different. People get drunk.’ They should put that on their advertisements.”

“Shut up!” Peter protested as the others laughed. “You know what I mean! It seems, I don’t know,” he looked around the bar again, “more alive, I guess.”

“That singer sure is helping,” James said, turning his head to look at the woman at the microphone. 

“Merlin, aim high, why don’t you?” Sirius said with a scoff.

“I wasn’t gonna talk to her!” James insisted, kicking Sirius’s leg under the table. 

Remus laughed, and glanced over to the bar. “I think that’s our drinks are coming up,” Remus said, and motioned for Sirius to slide out of the booth.

Sirius let Remus out, and promptly re-took his seat. He watched as Remus walked up to the bar to retrieve their four pints, just as another man walked up next to him at the bar to order. Then, for a reason Sirius couldn’t fathom in the slightest, Remus and the man at the bar stilled, and turned to look at each other.

The man at the bar looked to be about their age, maybe a bit older, but was in decidedly shabbier clothing. His jeans were ripped and his work boots were scuffed and worn, and he had a frayed red scarf around his neck, despite it being the middle of summer. He had dark hair that fell about his chin, and a cigarette pinched between his lips. His equally dark eyes stared directly into Remus’s, with what Sirius thought looked like recognition, or maybe appraisal. 

Remus seemed taken aback by the man, observing him with an equally intense look, though he seemed almost hopeful. He took a step back, still not uttering a single word, and looked the man up and down, as if he were searching him for something. 

The man smiled around his cigarette, took it between his fingers and blew smoke up towards the ceiling of the bar. When he ordered his drink, he didn’t take his eyes off of Remus. 

Remus, seemingly shaken, grabbed the pints from the bar finally, and walked with them back over to the table. 

Sirius frowned. “What the hell was that about?” he asked as he took a pint for himself. 

Remus’s eyes were wide, and his breathing was shallow.

“...Moony?” James asked, when Remus didn’t respond. 

Remus looked up at the rest of them and shook his head, before taking a quick look at the man at the bar once more. “That man…” he said, “...I think he’s a werewolf too.”

“What??” Peter squeaked, his eyes darting over to the man.

“How do you figure that,” James asked, a frown forming between his brows. 

“I don’t know,” Remus said, shaking his head quickly. “It was just something about… well, his scent was different.”

“His scent?” Sirius asked. “You can smell that?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Remus said, reaching out a shaking hand to grab his own pint before thinking better of it. “I don’t know how to describe it. He just felt like… well, he felt familiar. Like I knew him. He felt… comfortable.”

Sirius didn’t know why, but Remus’s words made it feel like there was suddenly a knot in his stomach.

“Well,” James said, “do you… want to go talk to him?”

Sirius straightened up in his seat. “What? Why would he do that?”

James raised a brow at Sirius. “I don’t know,” he turned to Remus, “you said you felt comfortable with him, right?”

“I think so,” Remus said with a small shrug. “I mean… I’ve never met another werewolf before.”

“Really?” Peter asked, tilting his head.

“Well they don’t go around advertising themselves, do they?” Sirius snapped. He ignored Peter’s glare and turned to Remus. “I don’t know if you should talk to him. He might be…” He paused.

Remus turned to him. “Might be what?” he asked, a tightness to his tone. 

“I only meant he might not take kindly to someone who hangs out with wizards,” Sirius said. 

“Well,” Remus said, glancing at the man again, “then I won’t tell him you are.”

Sirius sighed. “Remus—” 

“Can you not tell?” James asked, not nearly as concerned about the situation as Sirius so desperately needed him to be. “I mean, can you sense other werewolves, but not other wizards?”

“Never noticed a difference in the smell myself,” Remus said with a shake of his head. He looked between them all and stood up from the table. “I’m going to go talk to him.”

Sirius felt the knot in his stomach twist. “Remus you can’t—”

But James cut in. “I think that’s a fine idea,” he said, shooting a pointed look at Sirius. “We’ll be right here.”

Remus gave James a smile, and walked over to the man at the bar without looking at Sirius.

Sirius immediately leaned over the table and glared at James. “What the hell are you thinking?!” he spat. “He can’t just go up to a random werewolf in a strange bar in foreign country! That’s insane!”

“I get it,” James said, holding up a hand in placation, “but you saw how excited Moony was, didn’t you?” He glanced over to Remus and the man at the bar, who had begun talking to each other. “And… I don’t know, after what happened at the gate,” he shrugged, “I figure it might be good for him to talk to someone who understands, you know?”

“We understand him!” Sirius protested. “We don’t know what the hell that man thinks about anything!”

“I know that,” James insisted, “but we’re all here with him! If something starts going bad, we can step in, ok? But,” he looked over at Remus again, and Sirius looked as well. He and the man at the bar had taken a seat at a small round table a little ways away from them. Remus was smiling, and so was the other man. “...Let’s give him the chance to figure it out on his own, yeah?”

The way James was studying Remus and the man from the bar was gentle, and somehow that only made Sirius more perturbed. He groaned and looked away from Remus and the man. “Fine. But we need to keep an eye on them.”

“I know,” James said with a nod. 

“A really close eye.”

“I know.”

“He seems to be getting on just fine,” Peter said, looking over at Remus. “I mean, they’re both smiling, and talking.”

“Shut up, Peter,” Sirius snapped, and took a drink from his pint. 

Peter looked affronted, and opened his mouth to retaliate. 

“Hey,” James said, putting his hands between Sirius and Peter. “Cut it out. None of that,” he said, raising his brows pointedly at Sirius. 

Sirius sat back in his seat and crossed his arms petulantly. One thing Remus had always added to their group was balance. He kept a level head when Sirius was too hot headed, or James too cocky, or Peter too obtuse: he never rose to Sirius’s taunts, indulged James’s boasts, or belittled Peter. And it wasn’t as if their group fell apart completely in his absence, except in the few instances when it did. The two that clashed the most were Sirius and Peter, who were two complete opposites in nearly every way that the differences between them would boil over without Remus to act as a mediator. James would often have to step in, but seeing as James was usually on Sirius’s side, it often made matters worse.

This, however, was not one of those times, and by the stern look both Peter and James were giving him he knew he was outnumbered. And he hoped that they were right—that this werewolf they had stumbled upon wouldn’t be so embittered and turned cruel by the world that he proved to be dangerous. But as Sirius looked back to Remus and the man sitting at the table, laughing at something, their hands so close together on the table, he couldn’t help but feel something hot and angry churning within him. 

~~~

Sirius kept his eyes on Remus and the man in the scarf for an hour. 

Remus and the man had continued to talk, continued to laugh, and gradually leaned closer to each other over the table. Remus’s eyes were bright with something when he laughed, and it reminded Sirius of the quiet elation he had seen Remus express that morning in the tree when they were looking out over the ocean. The man in the scarf had a smile that was warm when he looked at Remus, it seemed to soften his angled and weary face. 

Sirius didn’t care for the man in the scarf one bit. 

“He’s wearing a scarf,” Sirius had said, a glare fixed on the man as he complained to James. “It’s the middle of July, who wears scarves?”

“I dunno, mate,” James said, “maybe he’s got a scar or something.” 

“He’s smoking,” Sirius continued. “Right in Remus’s face. That’s pretty fucking rude.”

“Sirius, you smoke,” James sighed. “You have cigarettes in your pocket right now. And so does Moony.”

“And what is he drinking?” Sirius asked, gesturing at the man with his hand. “Is that straight whiskey? Who does he think he is?”

“Ok,” James said finally, scooting out of the booth. “I think Wormy and I are gonna walk around the bar a bit.”

Peter happily filed out of the booth after James, and Sirius was left looking between the two of them in confusion. “What? I thought you said we were gonna keep an eye on them!” Sirius protested.

“I did,” James said, sounding tired “but you’re outright spying on them now. Look,” he held up a hand to stop Sirius’s protests. “The man looks like he’s being perfectly nice, Moony looks happy… I think it would be fine to give them just a little bit of space.”

Sirius opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off, rather suddenly, by Peter. 

“Just because you’re determined not to have fun tonight, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer!” he said, his cheeks red from the single pint he had finished. “Moony’s doing fine. You’re not the only one who gets to be concerned for him, you know.”

Sirius was too caught off-guard by Peter’s interjection to respond before Peter turned and walked away towards the bar in a huff. 

James sighed. “I think you can lighten up a bit, is all,” he said. “Let Moony have his night.”

“Whatever,” Sirius grumbled, and took another sip from his pint, only to find that it was already empty. 

James gave Sirius a pat on the shoulder before joining Peter at the bar, leaving Sirius alone at the booth. 

Sirius sat back in his seat, his arms folded over his chest once more, and continued to observe Remus and the man in the scarf. He knew they looked to be getting on well—there was absolutely nothing predatory in the way the man was looking at Remus. In fact, if Sirius was being honest with himself, he thought the man’s posture and gaze and smile all indicated him being rather amiable towards Remus. 

And Remus looked back at him in just the same way. It was as if he was sitting across from a long-lost friend, eagerly catching up on everything he had missed. And Sirius knew that that should make him happy. That it should make him want to leave Remus to enjoy this encounter for all that he could. 

But something kept him rooted to the booth, in rapt and furious attention. And it pained Sirius to watch Remus enjoying his night so much with someone outside their group. Perhaps it was because he felt he had only just gotten Remus back, that he was feeling so left out…

He saw Remus’s expression grow a bit more serious, and he gestured briefly to his abdomen, where Sirius knew The Chomp was beneath his shirt. The man in the scarf gave a nod, and pulled down the scarf ever so slightly around his neck to reveal a mottled and dark patch of skin that looked quite similar to Remus’s. 

Sirius felt his fist clench where it rested on the table. It had taken Sirius, James, and Peter months before they even saw the scar, and another year before they knew what it truly was. The fact that this man could just wander up to Remus in a bar accidentally and then be privy to his most intimate secret an hour later… it made Sirius’s skin prickle with something.

The man in the scarf reached his hand just a little closer to Remus’s on the table, and if Sirius hadn’t been looking as intensely as he was he would have completely missed the fact that the man’s fingers were just brushing up against Remus’s. Carefully, almost tentatively. 

And that was… strange. 

Sirius saw Remus’s cheeks darken, and he looked down at where their hands met on the table. And Sirius also saw that Remus’s fingers, just as carefully, reached back. 

There was a look in the man in the scarf’s eyes that was suddenly a little darker, but not in a way that seemed dangerous. It was accompanied by another smile, that was less warm and just a little… well, Sirius couldn’t place what it was, exactly. 

Remus’s cheeks got even redder, and Sirius saw his eyes quickly dart around the bar. Sirius ducked his head down for a moment, so Remus wouldn’t see him staring directly at him, and when he raised it the man in the scarf had stood from the table. Still smiling, his hand now deliberately brushing against the back of Remus’s hand on the table. 

Sirius felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. 

Remus looked up at the man in the scarf, his eyes wide and bright with that something he had had the entire night, and rose from the table as well. The man nodded his head towards a small door at the other end of the bar, and began walking towards it. Remus followed, his knee knocking into the chair he had been sitting in as he walked past it.

Sirius rose from the booth and immediately went after them. The man in the scarf was leading Remus away from the bar, and Sirius had to stop him. He was trying to separate Remus from his friends, to get him alone so he could—Sirius didn’t know what, but he knew he had to stop it before they got too far away. 

The man opened the door for Remus, and Remus stepped through it quickly. The man scanned the bar, just missing Sirius as he hid himself behind a large group of older men in suits, and followed him out the door. Sirius pushed through the group, ignoring the shouts of protest as he bolted for the door. He caught it just before it closed, and pulled it open to find that it led to the alleyway behind the bar. 

He looked down the alleyway to see the man in the scarf pulling Remus along by his hand, and he was about to shout something, anything, to get them to stop, but then Remus tossed his arms around the man’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. 

Sirius froze.

The man smiled into the kiss, and kissed him back, his hands resting on Remus’s hips and pulling him closer. He pushed them up against the wall of the alley, and they both laughed, grinning madly at each other as the man went in for another kiss. 

Sirius backed himself into the bar once more and shut the door. 

He stood, staring blankly at his feet as the noise of the bar surrounded him once more, and sensed the anger and anxiety that had been boiling in his head up until moments ago quiet itself down. Now, he was overtaken by a strange sinking feeling in his stomach—not the knot of nerves that was there before, more like his insides had tied rocks to themselves and jumped into a river without him. His hands were clammy and had begun to sweat, and he felt a strange ringing in his ears that silenced all the other noise of the bar around him. His head was fuzzy, he had no possession over his limbs as he walked to the bar, and ordered another pint in English. 

~~~

Sirius ran back into James a few minutes later. James had been talking with a girl at the bar who seemed to be accepting of his presence when he had caught eye of Sirius. “Hey!” he said, putting a hand on Sirius’s shoulder. “Glad you decided to join us,” he said.

Sirius only nodded and took a sip of his drink. He was wondering if ‘us’ meant him and the girl, until he saw Peter a few feet down, also speaking to a girl, who seemed just a little less interested than James’s. 

James frowned briefly and then gestured to the girl. “This is Fabia,” he said smiling. 

Fabia smiled. “Hi,” she said, and raised her glass in greeting. 

Sirius raised his glass as well, but said nothing and took a drink instead. 

He heard James say something along the lines of ‘looks like he’s been hitting the bar without me,’ and then laugh awkwardly by way of explaining away Sirius’s behavior. Sirius decided he didn’t actually want to talk to anyone the rest of the night and so he walked away from James and Fabia and over to a free small round table and sat down. 

He looked down at the table and took another sip. Sirius didn’t feel like he had any vocabulary to describe how he was feeling, he just knew that he felt bad and he wanted not to. 

He had intruded on another of Remus’s secrets. He shouldn’t have seen what he did. And he felt terrible, and like he needed to apologize to Remus all over again, but knew that would only make things worse. And his guilt didn’t explain away the sinking feeling in his stomach. That was a different, somehow more persistent emotion that went along with the guilt, like some sort of hellish cocktail.

Sirius saw James walk back towards him out of the corner of his eye. “Sirius? Are you feeling ok?”

“No,” Sirius answered simply.

“How much have you had to drink?”

Sirius didn’t look up at James, but he could tell by his tone of voice that he was worried. “Only my second pint,” he said, and took another sip. 

“That’s good,” James said, and he sounded relieved, but he didn’t leave Sirius’s side. “...What’s going on? Talk to me.” 

Sirius sighed and put his drink on the table. “I don’t want—”

But they were interrupted by someone else sitting down at the chair across from Sirius. Sirius looked up to see that it was Remus, smiling, hair slightly mussed and with flushed cheeks. He looked between James and Sirius, and his smile widened. “Hi!” Remus said finally, and it sounded downright cheery. 

Sirius locked his eyes on Remus, but he couldn’t open his mouth to say anything.

“Hey Moony,” James said, a light laugh stumbling through his lips. “...How’s your night going?”

“Oh, great,” Remus said, and his smile got even wider. “Johannes—well, Johan, that’s his name, the other werewolf, he’s—well, we get on great. Really great, actually. He’s very kind. He’s only nineteen. Lives on his own in the city. Well, around the city. He moves around. Anyway it was great talking to him. Really great. Like… I don’t know, do you ever get to talking to someone and feel like you’ve been talking together your whole lives? That sounds ridiculous. But it, well. It felt like he knew me, if that makes sense? Everything I had brought up he had been through too. And he had tips on things, as well. And he just, he’s really seen a lot, you know? And he listened to all my silly questions. But he didn’t think they were silly, he was so understanding. And it was… well. Anyway, he invited me to go and, well… see the city with him. For a bit. Tonight. And I was thinking I’d go. With him, that is.” Remus looked between James and Sirius with wide, hopeful eyes. “...Tonight.”

“Uh…” James took a moment after Remus’s monologue to blink, looking between him and Sirius. “I… yeah, that’s great, Moony,” he said, and eventually smiled. “Happy you found him. Have fun.”

Sirius felt like he had just been dunked in freezing water. “You… what?” he asked, shaking his head. “You just met him and you’re going to—” he had no idea what he thought he was going to say, but he knew he needed to rephrase it regardless. “Go and… see the city... with him?”

Remus looked back at Sirius. A frown began to form between his brows. “Well… yes.” He glanced at James briefly before continuing. “I just thought… I’d let you know. And meet up with you later. Is that ok with you?”

James nodded. “Yeah, of course it’s—”

“No,” Sirius said. “That’s… Remus that’s stupid. And dangerous!” He didn’t know where his newfound courage for words was coming from, but he desperately wanted it to go away. “You’ve known this bloke for what, two hours? And now you trust him enough to go off and…” (What are you saying. Stop saying anything. Stop it,) his head screamed at him. “And… go off… around the city?”

Remus let out a scoff. “Sirius, I’m perfectly capable of walking around the city by myself at night. Johan just wanted to—” 

“To what?” Sirius asked, his voice rising. “To get you alone? So he could—you don’t know what he’ll do!”

“It’s Zurich, for Christ’s sake,” Remus said, shaking his head. “Not a bloody minefield! Why are you getting so upset?”

“Because you—” Sirius’s head was swimming with desperation, and he felt the heat of anger tingling up from his fingertips to his ears. “You always think you know what you’re doing even if you’ve never done anything like it before, and I don’t want you to get hurt because you’re too stupid to ask for anyone else’s advice!” 

“Sirius!” James exclaimed, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Merlin, what the hell’s gotten into you tonight?” He turned to Remus and held up a hand in apology. “Moony, I’m sorry, go have a good time. I’m gonna take him back to the room.”

Remus was looking at Sirius as if he had just been slapped. He stood from the table, not taking his eyes off him as he replied to James. “...fine. I’ll… meet you at the archway at two?”

“Sounds good, mate,” James said with a nod, and placed his other hand on Sirius’s shoulder to urge him up and out of his chair. “I’ll see you then.”

Remus nodded, and with one last cool and decidedly hurt look at Sirius, left the table and walked to the other end of the bar. 

Sirius shook James’s hands free from his shoulders. “Remus, wa—”

“No,” James said, taking a hold of his shoulders once more and steering him towards the door. “You’re done for the night.” His grip was firm, but not uncomfortable as he steered him through the dense crowd and towards the exit. 

“Prongs, get your—” Sirius tried to struggle out of James’s grip, but he was too distracted to properly concentrate on breaking free. “Let me go!”

Sirius noticed them pass Peter at the bar, who was now looking very confused by what he saw happening in front of him. “What’s—?”

James nodded his head towards Sirius. “We’re leaving. We’ve gotta take him back.”

“No you don’t!” Sirius protested, but James kept pushing him forward. “I’m fine! James, what the—” but before he could finish, they were both stumbling out into the street, the summer wind hitting Sirius’s face in a shock of warmth. 

He found his footing on the pavement and pushed his hair out of his face to see James and Peter, giving him the same stern and worried looks they had given him earlier that night. “What the hell was that for??” Sirius barked. There were a few people staring at them on the streets as they passed, but most of them kept their heads down as they quickly maneuvered around the group. 

“How about you tell me?” James said, spreading his hands wide in exasperation. “You’ve been on Moony’s arse all night! None of that needed to happen! I thought you said you guys were good?”

“We—” Sirius stopped. He realized he had no words to explain why he had gotten so upset that wouldn’t implicate Remus in some way. Or that made any sense at all, for that matter. He had no idea why he was so angry. But he felt it acutely. The anger had prickled up from his fingers to his ears to his head, and he couldn’t stop it or reason with it. He wasn’t angry at Remus, or with the secret that they now unknowingly shared and that Sirius had to keep. He didn’t know where the pins and needles of this agitation came from. He was just… angry. “We are! We were! I don’t know!”

“Well go back to the room and figure it out!” James shouted, “because that was fucked, mate.” He sighed, and lowered his voice. “Couldn’t you see the look on his face? That he needed this?”

Sirius let out a groan. “He didn’t—”

“He did,” James repeated, pointing a finger squarely at Sirius’s chest. “And you saw it. And you chose to make him feel like shit for it.”

Sirius blinked at the heatedness of James’s words. He was looking at Sirius with a palpable warning in his eyes that he couldn’t help but shrink beneath them. “...I didn’t mean to,” was all he could say.

“Well you did,” James said. “And you need to figure out how to make it right.”

Sirius sighed through his nose. This was somehow all too familiar, and yet uniquely awful. After the prank, Sirius knew he had been wrong. That he had acted out in callous disregard for a cheap laugh. And he knew that he had been to blame for everything that happened afterwards. But now, being under James’s scrutiny once more, he couldn’t even come up with a reason for what he had done. For what he had said. It wasn’t as if he cared too little this time. It was something so much heavier, and worse. And he didn’t know how to sort through it on his own. 

But he had to, now. “Alright,” he said with a small nod. “Yeah. Alright.”

James lowered his finger, seemingly satisfied with the answer. “Good. Do you need me to walk back with you?”

Sirius shook his head. “No.” He waved away any persistence James was about to offer. “I promise. I’ll head right back.”

James held his gaze for a moment before nodding. “Ok,” he said. “Pete and I will stay up till Moony gets back. You get some sleep.”

Sirius nodded, and turned and began walking down the cobblestone street back to the hostel. He wished he had asked James to come with him. Hell, he wished Peter had come with him. But somehow, he didn’t feel like he deserved anyone’s company on the walk back.


	6. The Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's juuuust a little shorter than the last one, but I promise there's a SHIT ton that goes down! Thanks for reading!

**V**

**THE CONFRONTATION**

Sirius laid awake in his bunk for two hours, still dressed and with his shoes on, staring at the wooden ceiling of the hostel room. He had no real intentions of going to sleep—he knew he couldn’t if he tried. He just replayed what he had said to Remus over and over again. And what he had seen Remus do. 

He knew he should feel happy for Remus. Sirius saw how Remus and… _Johannes_ , had grinned at each other in the alleyway. He should feel glad that his friend had found someone to make him look that thrilled. 

It wasn’t, he was sure, because Johannes was a man. In all honesty that made the most sense out of anything that night. It explained why Remus was always so private with those things when James, Peter, and Sirius had practically screamed their hormonal proclivities from the rooftops. And he was glad that the pieces finally fit together in that regard. 

Perhaps it was because Johannes was a werewolf, but that didn’t make much sense either. Sirius knew that he had by far the most prejudice to unlearn between himself, James, and Peter. That fact that purity of blood and the inherent power that it held were good, noble things to pursue, was something he had consciously had to tear himself free from. And he had.

Or, at least, Sirius thought that he did. But maybe he hadn’t absorbed it as much as the others had. Maybe he still thought of Remus as the exception to the rule, after all this time, even though he thought he had moved past what his family had raised him to think. 

And that made Sirius’s stomach churn. It made him sick to think that he was still probably just as heinous as the rest of his family in so many things he didn’t even think about yet. Wouldn’t notice that he was until it was too late and he had already hurt someone he cared about. 

He needed to apologize to Remus. Again. Merlin, how many times would he end up having to do this on the trip? 

~~~

It was 2.30, and Remus and the others still weren’t back to the room yet. 

Sirius had planned to stay up to apologize to Remus as soon as he had returned. He didn’t want another argument to brew and fester so soon after they had gotten to be alright again. But he had become anxious when neither Remus, nor James and Peter had returned to the room, a half hour later than they said they would be back. On any other night, Sirius would have chalked it up to them all having a grand time at whatever bar they ended up at, rightfully isolating Sirius from them as he mulled over how to atone for his newest slight against his friends. But tonight, with dread already having become a familiar feeling in Sirius’s gut, Sirius was compelled to pull himself out of bed and out into the night air. 

Alte Hexenstraße was far from the buzzing nightlife of its neighboring muggle streets. The shops had long since closed down, their owners and patrons asleep in the flats above them for a good few hours by that point. It was still lit up by the old gas lamps at every block, but regardless, Sirius stumbled over more than a few cobblestones in the street as he made his way to the archway.

Sirius passed through the brick archway into the alleyway, expecting to be met with emptiness and the muffled buzzing of the surrounding streets, but instead, he was met with James and Peter, leaning against the alley wall and looking just a little more tired than when he had left them. 

Sirius frowned, and looked up and down the alleyway. “Moony isn’t back yet?” 

“Not yet,” James said with a shrug, though Sirius could tell he was growing concerned. “Sure he’ll be back soon though.” He looked at Sirius, taking in his probably frazzled appearance. “Maybe you should wait until the morning to talk to him.” 

Sirius shook his head. “I’m good now. I promise,” he said, though he felt the dread bury itself deeper within his stomach. 

“I’m nearly asleep,” Peter said, and let out a yawn. “If he’s not back soon, I might fall asleep against the wall.”

James smiled. “Come on, Wormy. Thought you were down to party.”

“Maybe an hour ago I was,” Peter said around another yawn. 

Sirius couldn’t reach the others’ levity, already having become far too anxious that Remus hadn’t returned yet. And, at the back of his mind, Sirius knew that that might actually mean that Remus was having a _far_ better night than he had set out to, but Remus wasn’t the kind of person who would stand up his friends after making a definite plan. (And there was that ugly part of him, still gnawing away in his head, that felt a little sick at the notion that Remus would be spending the night with Johannes.)

Just as Sirius was about to suggest to James and Peter that he be left to stand watch for Remus while they head back to get some sleep, the rapid fall of footsteps against cobblestones rang out along the alley walls. Remus skidded to a stop at the street corner, slightly out of breath, but decidedly in one piece. “Sorry,” he panted. “I was on the other side of the bridge when I realized what time it was, and then I got turned around in the dark.” He had an apologetic smile on his face as he walked over to them. “Thanks for waiting up.”

James smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “No worries, mate. Glad you made it back ok.”

Peter was kneeling down to tap out the pattern on the bricks on the wall with his wand, when another set of footsteps echoed off the walls. “Remus?”

They all turned to see Johannes, hands in his pockets, walking very carefully towards them. Sirius thought he had a curious look on his face, as if he was suddenly very wary of them. 

Remus’s face darkened enough to see it in the dim light of the alley. “Uh… Johan,” he said, raising a hand in greeting. “I um, thought you said you were living on the East side of town, now.” His voice had suddenly grown tight and dry sounding. 

“I am,” Johannes replied, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he took in the rest of them. “I just wanted to see that you made it back.” He had just a slight Swiss-German accent as he spoke, and up close Sirius could see just how patched up and disheveled his clothes were. He could even make out a few scars on his face—he had one across his nose, just like Remus did. 

Remus frowned slightly. “Well… I did,” he said. “You… followed me back all the way from the bridge?”

“Well,” Johannes said with a shrug, “you have to understand, when you said you were in a hostel in Old Town on the west side, my suspicions were raised.” He didn’t hold back a glare as he surveyed Sirius, James, and Peter once more. “And confirmed, it seems.” 

Remus’s eyes widened, and he quickly glanced back at the rest of them before taking a step closer to Johannes. “They’re not like everyone else,” he said, quiet enough so that Sirius’s ears had to strain to hear it. “I promise I can explain, but—can we talk about this later?”

“I don’t believe you,” Johannes said, shaking his head. “After everything we talked about, you’ve been with _them_ this whole time.” Sirius saw Johannes’s nose crinkle a bit in what looked like disgust, but it wasn’t quite a sneer. His eyes were distant, with a deep kind of sadness. 

A tense quiet fell over the alleyway. Remus looked like he was trying to say something, but he couldn’t find the words. “Johan… they wouldn’t, I promise—”

“I’ve just told you what they’re capable of!” Johan shouted back, his voice sounding tighter. “How could you not have told me?”

James stepped forward then, holding up a placating hand. “Hey mate, it’s really late,” he put a hand on Remus’s shoulder. “Everyone’s had a long night. How about Remus and you talk about this in the mor—”

“I wasn’t talking to _you_ ,” Johannes turned and snapped at James. Sirius could feel a fire crackling behind his words.

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Remus said, stepping protectively in front of a very taken aback James. “He hasn’t done anything to you.”

“Hasn’t done—? Listen to yourself!” Johannes said with a bitter laugh. “They’ve already gotten to you!”

“They know me!” Remus protested, shaking his head. “They know everything about me! And they accept me! I know it’s been different for you, but you can’t just—”

“Not everything,” Johannes said, much quieter. 

Sirius felt a sickening chill take a hold of his body. He looked at Remus, who’s eyes were wide and pleading, his skin grown so pale. “...Don’t,” Sirius heard Remus whisper to him. 

James seemed to bristle at the change in Johannes’s tone, and once again reached for Remus. “Come on, let’s—”

But Johannes took both of Remus’s hands in his suddenly, and seemed to implore him with his fiery gaze. “Come away with me.”

Remus balked at Johannes, and tried to free his hands. “ _What_?”

“Come away with me,” Johannes said again, tightening his hold in Remus’s hands. “Let me take you away from them, we can find others outside of the city! Form a new pack, not have to listen to any of them anymore, or hide anything!” 

Sirius saw Remus’s eyes get just a bit shinier beneath the dim light of the street lamps. “...You can’t ask me to do that.”

“Think of what your father’s done to you,” Johannes pressed on, “think of everything you’ve been through. You can _change_ it! You can leave it!” 

“I don’t want to leave it,” Remus insisted, and tried to pull away again. “Things can get better, I can—”

Johannes tightened his hold on Remus’s hands and pulled him closer. “You’re too young to know what you’ve gotten yourself into! I’m trying to _protect_ you!”

“Hey!” James cut in, putting a hand on Johannes’s shoulder to try and push him away. “Let go of h—”

Faster than Sirius could comprehend, Johannes had thrown James away from his shoulder and tossed him into the brick wall of the alley with a thud. 

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Sirius shouted, and without thinking ran straight for Johannes, aiming a punch at his face. But his fist never connected, and instead he received a blow to the gut, knocking the wind out of him. 

He stumbled back, but kept his footing, and was about to try again when he saw Remus pull Johannes’s arm forward, and thrust his knee into Johannes’s stomach, which brought Johannes to the ground.

Sirius had never seen Remus hit anyone before, beyond a playful shove amongst friends. But it was as if a switch had gone off in Remus, and all of his defensive instincts kicked in at once. He brought his leg around again and swung his foot squarely into Johannes’s face.

Johannes collided with the cobblestone ground beneath him, and let out a low groan. 

Seeing that Remus seemed to be handling Johannes just fine on his own, Sirius rushed over to where James was slumped on the ground against the wall and knelt beside him. “Hey” he said, tilting James’s head up to look at him. “You ok?”

James groaned and felt at the back of his head, his eyes shut in pain. “Yeah, just hit my head s’all,” he said, his hand coming away with just a bit of blood. “Just a scratch.”

Sirius’s heart lurched at the sight of the blood, but the fact that James was coherent made him feel a little more at ease. “Ok,” he said. He turned to look at Remus once more, and saw him standing over Johannes, his fist drawn and ready to strike again if he got up. 

Sirius could see that Remus was shaking, but even so his stance was sure, and his gaze left no room for argument. “Leave,” Remus said, when Johannes finally looked up at him. “Don’t come back.”

Johannes looked up at Remus, his slowly swelling cheek slightly obscuring the hurt in his eyes. “Remus…”

“I mean it,” Remus said, and his voice was shaking now too. “I don’t want to see you ever again.” 

Johannes looked at Remus for a moment more before raising himself up from the ground. He wobbled on his feet at first, then found his footing and dusted himself off. “...You’re making a mistake,” he said softly. 

Remus shook his head. “I’m not.” He lowered his fist and nodded towards the end of the alleyway. “Leave. Now.”

Johannes looked at Remus a moment more, and Sirius could see the profound sadness behind his eyes, could see that Johannes had every reason to believe that he was just as right as Remus said he himself was. But he took a step back, and then another, and then turned and disappeared down the darkness of the alleyway. 

Remus looked after Johannes’s figure as he walked away, his eyes watery and red with everything he seemed to have kept just enough at bay during their fight. He took a deep breath, and wiped quickly at his eyes, before rushing over to James as well. “James, I’m so sorry,” Remus said, offering his arm for James to take. 

“Don’t worry about it,” James said, grunting a little as Sirius and Remus helped him up. “I’m fine. Just a scratch.”

Remus nodded, and his eyes flicked over to Sirius. “And… you?” he asked, somewhat more tentatively. 

“Me? Yeah,” Sirius said, shaking his head with nonchalance. “I’m fine. Just a punch in the gut.” Though if he was being honest, Johannes packed quite the punch. He could tell he would be bruised in the morning. 

Remus smiled, but then let it fade as he cleared his throat. “Good, that’s… good,” he said.

Sirius nodded, and offered him a small smile of his own. 

“Where the hell is Peter?” James asked, peering around the alleyway. 

Sirius’s smile dropped. He hadn’t even noticed when Peter had disappeared. “Pete??” he called into the alley.

Suddenly, Peter appeared behind Remus, close to the other side of the alleyway. He had a rat-like look of anxiety writ about his face, breathing quickly and eyes darting every which way. “Is it over??” he nearly squeaked. 

“Fucking hell, Wormy, did you turn into a fucking rat?!” Sirius all but yelled at him.

“I panicked!” Peter said, raising his hands in defense. “It just happened! I didn’t run away—I was going to get help if things got really bad!”

“Bloody good Gryffindor spirit you got there, mate,” Sirius snapped. 

“Don’t you—”

“Please,” Remus cut in, looking tiredly between Sirius and Peter. “Can we just… head back to the room now?” 

Sirius and Peter exchanged a look between each other, and then nodded. Their quarreling could wait. At least until tomorrow. 

The walk back to the hostel was silent. Just as Sirius had been the only one out on the cobblestone streets minutes before, their footsteps rang out against the empty road, with no one to hear. James seemed to be dizzy, stumbling just a little between the cobblestones in the dark, and Remus and Sirius guided him gently with the push and pull of their hands on his back. (Sometimes, Sirius and Remus’s fingers would touch, and Sirius would chance a look over at Remus. But Remus kept his eyes trained on the ground in front of him, determined not to see anything else.) 

When they got back to the room, Remus immediately went to get a wet towel to clean James’s cut at the back of his head. James had protested at first, but Remus insisted, and eventually James relented. Sirius thought Remus had seemed like he needed a distraction before he was ready to deal with anything else. 

Sirius took off his boots and jacket, and sat silently next to Remus on the lower bunk he set to cleaning James’s cut. 

Remus didn’t take his eyes off the back of James’s head, dabbing away at the blood that had trickled into his hair, and clearing away what had already dried against his skin. Peter was looking over worriedly at Remus from the bunk across them, fiddling with the sheets beneath him. “Um… ” Peter eventually spoke up, despite Sirius’s warning look he had given him, “Are you alright, Remus?”

“I’m fine,” Remus said, not looking up from the wound that was surely by now thoroughly cleaned. He settled on applying pressure with the towel for a moment before handing it over to James, who murmured his thanks. 

“...Are you… sure?” Peter pressed on hesitantly. “Because, you can—”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Remus said a little more curtly, though not unkindly, as he stood up from the bed and went to go wash his hands at the sink. 

Peter looked over at James and Sirius, anxious and apologetic. James had motioned for him to ease up on the questioning, gesturing in a cutting motion to his own neck, where Sirius had chosen to mouth ‘ _Fucking cut it out_ ,’ at him.

Peter put up his hands in surrender before folding his arms across his chest. 

The three of them looked on as Remus washed his hands at the kitchenette sink, his back turned to them. The water stopped running, and Remus gripped the sides of the sink and sighed. Silence rang throughout the room, the light drip of the old faucet hitting the metal basin beneath it like a solemn metronome. “...I’m sorry I put you all through that,” he said finally. 

James shook his head, even though Remus wasn’t turned to see him do it. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is,” Remus said, and finally turned to face them. Sirius saw that he had gone pale once more, and appeared to be shaking ever so slightly again. “I dragged all of you into that mess, and I should have… I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have gone off with him at all.”

“You had every right to,” Sirius said, and Remus looked at him with a bit of surprise. “I know… I know I was giving you shit for it earlier,” Sirius continued, “and I shouldn’t have. You deserved a night out with someone… you connected with.”

James glanced back at him, and Sirius could feel the approval in his gaze. Though he knew he was far from done with that apology to Remus. 

“But you were right,” Remus said, shaking his head, and Sirius could hear his voice start to waiver. “I should have been more careful. I can’t just go off with anyone who tells me I… ” He took a moment to breathe. “I know it’s different for me, even if I want to pretend it’s not. And I know I shouldn’t have gotten… attached.” A tear fell from his eye and he quickly wiped it away with his sleeve. “He was just… like _me_ , in so many ways. But I know I can’t—I know it’s different because he was, he… I’m… I’m a…” He was stammering, fighting back the panic in his throat that Sirius felt now too. 

“I kissed him,” he said, and more silent tears fell. “I’m gay. And I… I know that’s a lot to deal with,” Remus stammered on, “and I’m sorry, I’m sorry there’s already so many things wrong with me, and that I was stupid enough to not think through just going off with another werewolf, just because he told me all the right things, and—”

James got up from where he had been sitting on the floor, walked over to Remus, and pulled him into an embrace. “Don’t say you’re stupid,” James said, as Remus stood, frozen. “You know that’s not true. ’Specially about that.”

Remus blinked, seemingly in disbelief, as James continued to hug him. 

Sirius smiled, feeling a weight lift off of his chest, and stood and walked over to Remus as well. “Did Moony just say he thought he was stupid? Did I hear that right, Prongs?” Sirius asked, putting a hand on Remus’s shoulder and squeezing it with all the warmth he could muster. 

James stepped back from the embrace, and smiled at Sirius and Remus. “I don’t know, doesn’t sound right to me,” James said, as he took hold of Sirius’s wrist. “I think we’re gonna have to get closer to hear better.” He tugged Sirius’s arm around his own, and pulled them all into another hug. 

Remus let out a wet sounding chuckle, and finally reciprocated James’s embrace.

James looked across the room at Peter, who was still sitting on the bed, and nodded his head over to the rest of them. “Get in here, Wormy.”

Peter smiled, and joined the hug as well, which made Remus let out another wet laugh. 

“You’re all… ” Remus began, muffled into James’s shoulder, though Sirius could still hear the smile behind it. “Ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” James replied, and Sirius felt him hug Remus tighter. “And you’re stuck with us.”

Sirius could feel the relief pouring off of Remus in waves, and he wanted to hold him even closer. Remus always held so much tension in his body, was always so wound up like a coil, that to feel him let go of that strain for even just a moment did something to the tightness in Sirius’s chest that he had been carrying all night as well. He felt it release and banish itself within the comfort of his friends’ arms, and he never wanted to let go of the sensation. 

They let Remus dictate when the embrace was over, and when he pulled away it was with a teary smile. There was a wet patch on James’s shoulder where Remus had been resting his head, but neither of them commented on it. 

“You know,” Peter said, looking a little proud of himself, “I have a cousin on my mum’s side that’s gay.”

“Peter!” Sirius groaned. 

“What?” Peter countered, holding up his hands. 

But Remus let out a bark of laughter, and it sounded so comfortable that it made Sirius smile. And then he laughed as well. And James snorted, and Peter chuckled, and the room filled with their easy laughter, bouncing off the old wooden floors and off the deep metal basin of the sink. 

~~~

They had all gone to bed not too long after that. The night had been exhausting for all of them, and with no plans for the next day they had all planned on sleeping in. 

But Sirius woke fairly early the next morning anyway, just as the sun was beginning to stream through the curtains of the hostel room. He was about to close his eyes and try to fall back asleep, when the door to the room opened, and Remus, fully dressed for the day, walked in.

Sirius blinked, and rested his chin on the ledge of the bunk. “Where’d you come from?” he asked, voice thick and crackly with sleep.

Remus started for a moment at Sirius’s voice. “Sorry,” he said, closing the door slowly behind him. “Did I wake you?”

“Nah,” Sirius replied, and let out a yawn. “Did that on my own.”

Remus smiled, and walked back over to the bed. “Was just sending off an owl,” he said. He leaned his head against the rail of the bunk, a calm, easy smile on his face. 

“To who?” Sirius asked.

“Um,” Remus said, and his eyes darted over to the other bunk briefly. “Just… Lily.”

Sirius sat up a little more in his bed. “You _write_ to Evans?”

Remus’s eyes widened a bit and he held up a hand to quiet him. “ _Shh_ , not so loud!” he whispered.

“You sent an owl to Evans??” came a sleep-addled voice from the other bunk. And Sirius and Remus turned to see James sitting up fully in his bed, hair sticking up every which way from a night of restful sleep. 

Remus sighed, and rested his forehead against the wooden ledge of the bunk. “Thank you, Sirius,” he muttered. 

Sirius grimaced in apology. 

“What’s going on?” Peter said, rubbing at his eyes. “Thought we were sleeping in today...”

“Good morning, everyone,” Remus droned, and sat back down on his bed beneath Sirius’s. 

Sirius craned his neck over the side of his bed, his hair falling into his eyes. “Sorry, Moony,” he said. 

“What did you write Evans about?” James asked, now fully alert, as he slid his glasses back onto his nose. 

Remus rested his head in his hand, and looked back at James. “I told her I would let her know if I… you know... told you all.”

Sirius and James looked at each other from across the room. 

“You told Evans before us?” James asked, his voice strangled in a tense mix of curiosity and slight indignation. 

“I told _Lily_ ,” Remus said, sounding tired already, “after Christmas.” He looked down at his knees and flicked away a stray piece of lint. “It was just… easier to tell her before you all.”

Sirius thought for a moment. He supposed it made sense, to tell someone outside of your closest friends a secret like that. Sirius just didn’t have many other friends outside of James, Remus, and Peter, though, so the concept still seemed a bit abstract. 

“...So...” James said after a moment, “did you uh… did you tell her I was… down with it?”

Remus’s face was at once impassive and exhausted. “Actually I’m saving that for my second letter. It’s going to be several pages longer, and only about you.”

Sirius and Peter snorted.

James turned bright red. “Moony!” he groaned. 

Remus smiled a little. “Relax. I told her what happened. That should be a plenty favorable light, I think.”

James smiled as well. 

“ _I_ could write a letter to Evans, Prongs,” Sirius said with a grin. “I can tell her all about the girls in Ville de Morgaine. Tell her you’re mature enough to have pen pals now.”

“Shut up!” James shouted, and tossed his pillow across the room and at Sirius’s face. 

Sirius, Peter, and Remus laughed as Sirius caught the pillow and chucked it right back at James. 

Remus’s laugh died down into a content sounding sigh as he laid back down on his bed on top of the covers. “Didn’t mean to wake you all up. You can go back to sleep.”

“I think we’re awake for good now,” Sirius said with a laugh. “Think I could eat soon, actually.”

“I was thinking of heading down to a cafe I saw yesterday,” said Remus, poking his head out into Sirius’s line of sight from the bottom bunk. “I could pick up something for everyone.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sirius said, sitting up fully in his bed and stretching. He had wanted a space to apologize to Remus more thoroughly in private. The walk to the cafe seemed as good a time as any.

“Get me the biggest croissant you can find, Moony,” Peter said, before pulling his sheets back over his head. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Yes, your lordship,” he drawled as he climbed out of the bed.

But Remus only laughed. “I will, don’t worry.”

Sirius could feel how at ease Remus’s mood had been the entire morning. How all of his replies, even when sarcastic, seemed to be colored with a simple happiness. 

“Prongs,” Remus asked, sitting up in his bed once more. “Any requests?”

James flopped back onto his mattress, sprawling out his arms and kicking his feet free of his sheets. “Bread.”

“Right. Whenever you’re ready, Padfoot.”

~~~

Though the sun was still fairly low in the sky, Sirius could tell it was going to be an especially warm day. The streets weren’t especially crowded. It was a Saturday, and so most of the shops and restaurants still hadn’t opened yet. But the air held the promise of an especially buzzing summer day in the city, with a cooling breeze wafting across the river when Sirius and Remus crossed over the bridge into the East side of Old Town. 

They bought a large assortment of pastries, enough croissants, danishes, and other things that Sirius didn’t recognize the names of to be stuffed into three separate paper bags. (Remus ended up filling up a bag for himself while Sirius had taken care of the pastries for the rest of them.)

They walked back across the bridge in comfortable silence, both enjoying the sun and the view of the city in their own way, until Sirius decided to speak up, finally. “I’m um… I’m sorry I was… you know. A prick last night.”

Remus cocked his head to the side, and looked at Sirius. “You already apologized. Don’t worry about it.”

“I know, but…” Sirius shrugged. “Just wanted to… you know. Make sure you knew.” There was a moment of silence between them, and before Remus could respond Sirius barreled on. “I uh—actually, I have something I need to own up to.”

Remus stopped walking, and regarded Sirius with a suddenly very wary expression. “...Own up to?” Sirius noticed Remus’s cheeks had turned just a little bit pinker. 

Sirius stopped as well, and took a deep breath. “Y-yeah. I um… I saw you and Johannes last night,” he said, trying his best to hold Remus’s gaze. “Behind the bar. Before you, you know. Told us.”

Remus blinked for a moment, and then looked down at his shoes, shaking his head as if to clear it. “Oh.”

Sirius sighed. “That’s why I was… the way I was last night. I think I was just… well…” he looked over at the water as a boat sped by beneath them. “I think I was worried for you.”

“Worried?” Remus asked. 

Sirius looked back at Remus then. A frown was beginning to form between his brows, but he didn’t look upset or angry. He looked more curious than anything. “Yeah. I don’t really know why, I… don’t have an answer for that yet,” he said honestly, “but… I just know I acted pretty shite to you. And I shouldn’t have.”

Remus continued looking at Sirius, head tilted to the side again, studying him. “You saw me and you didn’t say anything? To me, or James and Peter?”

“I was never gonna tell anyone,” Sirius blurted out, a little quicker than he had meant to. “I wasn’t going to say anything, to anyone. Not until you did, I mean.”

Remus looked at him a moment more, his pale blue eyes searching Sirius’s for something. He didn’t know for what, but something inside of him deeply wished that he found it. 

Finally, Remus gave him a small smile, and reached out and placed his hand on Sirius’s arm appreciatively. “Thank you,” he said. “Really. That can’t have been easy for you to do.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “I mean, I think it was just a little more difficult for you, you know?” He smiled, and hoped it conveyed his sincerity. 

Remus laughed. “A little,” he agreed. 

They started walking again. The bridge was just a little fuller than it was when they crossed it before, with cyclists and cars passing them. 

“I’m sorry last night ended the way it did,” Remus said.

Sirius glanced over at Remus, but Remus’s eyes were trained on the path ahead. “Johan… he wasn’t a bad person. He’s just… been through it.”

Sirius’s skin prickled at the mention of Johannes’s name, and he cursed at himself internally for not having banished the instinct completely yet. He couldn’t figure out why it was so persistent. 

He took a moment to collect himself before responding. “...I could tell he was… sad, I guess. More than anything else.”

“He had a pack,” Remus continued. “He found them and… they were like a family to him, he said.” Sirius noticed Remus’s eyes turn down towards the ground, and his focus seemed far off. “He said they were all killed one night on the Full by a wizard hunting party.”

Sirius felt his stomach churn. Whatever ill he felt towards Johannes, it disappeared at least for that moment.

He had heard of Werewolf Hunting as a sport—was certain an uncle of his had even participated in a few excursions that he had boasted about during family dinners over the holidays—but he was under the impression it was nowhere near as popular as it had once been. The mortality rate for the wizards in the hunting party was gruesomely high, and only wizards wealthy enough to employ ample protection ever participated in it anymore. And even at that, it had developed enough of a savage and bloody reputation for it to be considered an indecorous and unbecoming use of any respectable wizard's time. But it seemed that sentiment had not spread everywhere just yet.

“That’s…” Sirius didn’t know if he had the words to amply describe what he felt. “That’s awful.”

Remus nodded, and he was quiet for a moment. “...He shouldn’t have acted the way he did. But I don’t want you to think… I don’t know. I guess I understand where he was coming from. He thought he was helping me.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, as if he could possibly understand what either Remus or Johannes had been thinking and feeling the other night. But he wanted to try. “Do you think… I mean… do you wanna see him again?” Sirius asked tentatively. 

Remus shook his head. “No. He hurt you, and James. I don’t think I can see him after that.”

Sirius tried to ignore the slight relief he felt blooming in his chest at that. 

“I might… I don’t know. Owl him eventually,” Remus continued. “Just to check in on him. I’m… worried about him. I want him to be ok. That’s stupid, isn’t it?” He looked at Sirius then, looking fairly guilty. 

“I don’t think so,” Sirius said. “Just shows you’re a fair bit more caring than most people. Part of what makes you Moony is the fact that you care so bloody much.” He smiled. “People like that about you.”

Remus smiled back. “Thank you,” he said, his face just a little freer of the tension it had had a moment ago. 

They walked in silence along the rest of the bridge, the wind carrying the horns of boats and the chatter of people down by the riverside. When they got back to the East Side of the river, Sirius turned to Remus. “Was that your first kiss?” 

Remus’s face flushed bright red. “What??”

Sirius grinned. “Last night. Was that your first kiss?”

“I…” Remus sputtered for a moment before settling on a glare. “I’m not telling you that.”

Sirius laughed. “No need to be self-conscious, Moony, you looked like a pro,” he said, and dodged the bag of pastries Remus used to swat at his torso. 

“Shut up!” Remus said, though Sirius could hear the laugh behind it.

“Might have a bit of _lothario_ in you after all,” Sirius quipped back. “Though, wait… not sure if it works that way anymore…”

“Sirius Black I am going to _murder_ you,” Remus said, aiming another swing with the bag of pastries at Sirius. 

~~~

They decided to go to the lakefront after breakfast. 

James was especially looking forward to seeing a muggle beach, convinced it must be leaps and bounds different than a wizarding one, and that Remus only insisted it wasn’t because he was used to it. Peter had insisted it would be much the same situation as the bar, and Sirius agreed. 

And though it didn’t turn out being as extravagantly different as James had hoped, Sirius had to admit it was something to look at. The grass of the shore fed into the shallow line of sand by the lakeside’s crisp green-blue water. People were sunning themselves on the grass, and hopping off of docks into the water as people in boats paddled and sailed by. The lake breeze was gentle, blowing only softly against Sirius’s face as he looked out over onto the horizon. “Sorry mate,” Sirius said. “Looks like a beach is just a beach.”

James shrugged, and waved Sirius’s comment away. “Eh, the metro was muggl-y enough.”

“The _metro_ was muggle-y?” Remus asked, walking over to a nearby tree and sitting under it. “It’s just a train.”

“Let’s let him have this,” Sirius said. James swatted at him. 

Peter looked around, hand sheltering his eyes from the sun. “Scenic, isn’t it?” he said. Then, a moment later, “Why’s it only blokes here?”

Sirius and James exchanged a look, and then surveyed the surrounding patrons. Sure enough, everyone around them was a man: boys jumping form the dock, men swimming further out, and men lying and sunning themselves. 

“A lot of Zurich’s beaches are separated by gender,” Remus said. “Guess this is one of them. I thought you knew that?”

“How would we have known that?” Sirius said, looking back at Remus. 

“It’s in the guidebook,” Remus replied. 

“We have a guidebook?” Sirius asked.

Remus shrugged. “It’s in Prongs’s oversized bag. I can see why you missed it.” He looked up at James. “Sorry. Guess you’ll have to put a hold on your quest.”

“Ah, well,” James said with a shrug, “good for you though, I suppose.” He smiled at Remus and waggled his eyebrows. 

Remus rolled his eyes and swung at his legs with his bag. “I think I’ll take a sabbatical on dating for now, thanks,” he said.

“Why limit yourself now?” said James “This is your vacation too. I bet there’s tons of worthy candidates around here. OOH,” he said, his eyes widening and a grin forming on his face, “Let’s find Moony a date!”

“ _Please_ do not,” Remus said with a laugh. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but no.” He pulled his enormous copy of _Ulysses_ out of his bag, and settled against the trunk of the tree. 

“ _Moony_ ,” James all but groaned, “put the book down for a day, will you? It’s too nice out to just sit and read.” He knelt down beside Remus and gestured towards the offending item. 

Remus smiled and shook his head. “I’d argue it’s too nice a day to _not_ sit out under a tree and read,” he said. 

“C’mon, Jamie Joy will be there when we get back to the room,” Sirius said, joining in James’s protests with a smile. 

“I know you know that’s not his name.”

“And you can continue to tell me how wrong I am as we walk down the shore,” Sirius said, bending down and placing his hand over Remus’s where it held open the book. 

Sirius had touched Remus countless times. They had shoved each other around, placed consoling hands on each other’s shoulders, fought over sticks as Wolf and dog, but Sirius, in that moment, couldn’t for the life of him remember if they had ever held hands before. Or if they did, if it had ever felt this uniquely electric. The feeling of Remus’s hand beneath his was so strikingly singular, so novel, and at the same time gave Sirius a warmth he didn’t know if he had ever felt before. He had held James’s hand before, he was certain. (He thought he even recalled kissing James on one occasion at a drunken Quidditch celebration, to the goading of their teammates.) But it had never felt like an event, like this small gesture felt to him in that moment. 

Sirius was so taken aback by the feeling his first instinct was to snatch his hand away. But that would have looked strange, (and rude, no doubt) to suddenly recoil from Remus’s touch. Especially when it now felt so essential, and so new. 

Instead, he held Remus’s gaze, hoping that Remus wouldn’t sense how Sirius’s brain seemed to be short-circuiting, or how his heart seemed to have stopped beating, or how his face was doubtlessly bright red from all the blood that seemed to be collecting in his face. 

Remus looked at him for a moment, and though Sirius could have sworn he saw some sort of flicker behind Remus’s eyes, he seemed to take the gesture in stride. He smiled at him, the way he always had, and closed the book in his lap, Sirius’s hand sliding off of it naturally. “Alright,” he said. “Fine.”

Sirius straightened his posture, and hoped that neither James nor Peter had noticed anything strange about the interaction. 

“Yes!” James said, grinning and pumping his fist. “Come on then, I bet I can land that backflip if you show it to me again.” He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it next to his bag, already walking towards the dock.

Sirius studied Remus for a moment, to see if he would comment on something, anything to indicate he had seen the strange lightning bolt of panic and strange thrill that had coursed through him, but he just stowed his book away once more and rose from the ground to toe off his shoes. 

Sirius removed his shirt and followed quickly after James. Maybe he had been making a bigger deal out of it than it really needed to be. 

James got a running start on the dock and jumped into the water, getting a good few feet of air before he landed in a splash in the blue-green water. Sirius picked up his speed and ran after him, jumping just as high and landing, intentionally, nearly on top of James in the water and pushing him underneath. 

James sputtered as they both resurfaced from beneath, and immediately splashed Sirius’s face with the lake water. “You arse!” he shouted, while Sirius laughed and willingly took the splashing. 

“What, did I interfere with your backflip?” Sirius teased, splashing him back.

“I wasn’t trying that time!” James retorted, and attempted to splash him again before Sirius managed to dunk him beneath the water. 

Peter came splashing into the water beside them, having landed a perfectly respectable cannonball and sent a wave of water over on top of Sirius and James. 

James resurfaced, laughing at the indignant look Sirius got on his face when Peter’s splash had plastered his long hair to his face. 

And then came Remus, getting a running start as well and flipping forwards into the water. 

They cheered at another impressively executed dive, and Remus resurfaced with a laugh, bowing his head in exaggerated thanks. 

He tossed his light hair away from his face, freeing it from brushing against his scarred cheeks and nose. And when he laughed, Sirius could see the smile brighten his pale, blue eyes. His lips looked pinker, brightened by the flush of the heat, maybe, and Sirius thought they looked very, very soft. Soft enough Sirius had the urge to reach out and touch them, brush his fingers against them, to see how they would feel against his skin. Or maybe even—

Sirius’s heart once again felt as if it had stopped beating. Felt the heat once again rush to his face. 

That, he was certain, was not something he had ever felt about James, or Peter. 

The confusion, the anger (the jealousy) he had been feeling last night came into sharp focus as he looked at his friend, laughing and smiling beside him. And Sirius wondered how it was possible to feel so utterly clear-headed and lost at the same time. 

He fancied Remus Lupin. 

Completely, and hopelessly. 

And it ached. 


	7. Fallout, and Amsterdam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: there's um... a lot of throwing up in this chapter. I promise it's not graphic, it's not described in detail in any way, but it is there and I'd be remiss if I didn't warn you all ahead of time.

**VI**

**FALLOUT, AND AMSTERDAM**

_I need to talk to James,_ Sirius thought desperately. _I need to talk to James **right now**. _But then stopped himself. How on earth was he even supposed to broach that conversation? He couldn’t very well just walk up to James and say he thought he was having heart palpitations over their best friend. Least of all while they were all stuck on a trip together.

It wasn’t because Remus was a man—Sirius knew James would have no issue with that. It was because he was _Remus_. 

If Sirius let himself act on this, this however-long-lasting-ache he felt, it had the potential to ruin everything he and Remus had built along this trip. Remus might think that he was making fun of him somehow. For Sirius to feel these things so soon after Remus had told them what he did last night… 

But then, how long had Sirius been feeling this way, and he not realized it for what it was? Had he been so caught up in getting Remus back in his life that he hadn’t realized _why_ he was so desperate? Looking back, several moments with Remus on the trip suddenly came into clearer focus. How happy he had been, to see Remus smiling in the courtyard at the castle ruins as the breeze of lavender and sea air swept back his hair from his face. How he fixated on the pull of Remus’s muscles underneath his shirt when he executed the dive from the rocks. How he so easily dispensed with pursuing the girls on the beach with James and Peter just to make sure Remus was alright. And how he fixated on Remus and Johannes last night with burning, angry jealousy.

How long had he been feeling this way? Has it always been there? Something tugging him towards Remus, desperate for his smile, his laugh, his touch? Was it only ever Remus, or had there been other men too?

All this barreled through Sirius’s mind rapidly and mercilessly; a lorry speeding out of control that pushed all other thoughts aside for the most intensely uncomfortable fifteen seconds of his life. 

James must have noticed, because he soon felt a hand shake his shoulder lightly.

Sirius shook his head and looked over to James, who was giving him a very, very concerned look. “You alright?” he asked, his voice much quieter than the chattering of Peter and Remus beside them in the water. 

Sirius nodded quickly (and perhaps, too eagerly). “Yeah. Yeah m’fine,” he said.

James looked unconvinced. “You went away for a second,” he said. 

Sirius felt a bit guilty, then. Since he had run away to the Potters’ that Christmas, he occasionally had what James had dubbed ‘Moments.’ His eyes would stare off at nothing, and his breathing would pick up, and his mind would hole itself up with the most unpleasant things, memories, that it could. He was always so grateful to have James there during those Moments. But there was no way he could tell James that what he had just experienced was categorically and emphatically unrelated to that particular brand of panic.

“Sorry,” Sirius said, shaking his head once more. “Just… zoned out. Promise.” He gave James a smile that he hoped was convincing, because he really couldn’t say anything else to ease him. 

James studied him for a second more before nodding his head. Sirius breathed a sigh of relief. 

They spent the afternoon at the lake, as they had planned. Remus attempted to teach James to do a backflip off of the dock, (which James never quite mastered, but put up a valiant effort in trying) James challenged everyone to a race to the next dock and back, and Peter inadvertently started a splashing war that he lost miserably. Throughout it all, Sirius tried to keep up his normal facade. To push down the fresh anxieties that were corroding his rational thoughts. Sirius could only hope, desperately, that it worked. 

~~~

They had another full day in Zurich after that. Mostly, they wandered about Old Town, trying out the different restaurants and bars, taking in the Medieval atmosphere of the city, James taking pictures all the while. But Sirius found he couldn’t separate himself entirely from the revelation he had suffered at the lake. Every establishment they went to, he would steal glances at Remus, then quickly look away, or stare off into the distance, or try and observe if he found any of the other male patrons attractive. He was consumed by his confusion, distancing himself from his friends as he struggled to keep afloat in his own head. 

James certainly noticed. He kept giving Sirius worried, furrowed-brow looks across tables or beside him on the old streets. Wordless repeated questions of _Are you ok?_ , _Are you with us?,_ and _You’re talking to me later, alright?_ Sirius would nod away James’s concern, and continue failing to walk the line between questioning his entire relationship with Remus and having fun with his friends. 

Remus absolutely made things worse. 

The way he’d pat Sirius’s shoulder, or brush up against him as they walked on the pavement. How he’d laugh at something snarky or stupid Sirius said, and how his eyes would light up a little each time he did. It made Sirius desperate for his touch, for any simple acknowledgment. But every time he found himself wanting to go and earn just a little more of Remus’s attention he’d have to reign himself in. He didn’t know how seriously he was allowed to take these new emotions, and he couldn’t let Remus know before he was certain of what to do. 

How, exactly, he was supposed to figure out how to go forward, he had no idea. 

Early the next morning, James had arranged for a portkey to take them to Amsterdam. It was far too great a distance to take the Continental Wizarding Rail, and there wasn’t as extensive a Floo Network in the Netherlands. 

“I’ve never taken a Portkey before,” Peter said excitedly as they made their way to the Owlery and Currency Exchange station in Alte Hexenstraße. “I bet it’s wild.”

“I bet you make yourself sick before we land,” Sirius said, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. “In fact, I bet we all do.” Sirius had never used a portkey for travel before. The Black Family always preferred the more decorous Floo Network or side-along Apparation for methods of long-distance travel. 

“You’re just saying that because you’re afraid _you’ll_ get sick,” Peter said back, a small frown on his face. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Lyall said that students used to travel to Hogwarts using portkeys all the time before the Hogwarts Express,” Remus said. “Apparently there were a few who were sick for days afterwards.” 

“Lyall’s not that old, is he?” Sirius asked, smirking. 

Remus snorted. “He read about it, obviously.” A smile tugged at his lips, and Sirius felt his stomach tighten just a little at the sight of it. 

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough,” James said, holding the door to the Currency Exchange Office for the rest of them. 

It was a narrow building, wedged in between a larger haberdashery on one side and a cheese store on the other (which mingled unpleasantly with the smell of owls wafting down from the upper floor). Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter all stood crammed in front of the desk as a disinterested older wizard slowly paged through an old book, not looking up to greet them. 

“Um, hello,” James started with a smile. 

The wizard did not look up. 

“We booked a portkey? For ten o’clock?” James continued.

“Name?” The wizard asked in a gruff voice, turning a page from his book. 

“Potter,” James said. “James Potter.”

The wizard grumbled in acknowledgment. “The English boy, right,” he droned, and reached over to a shelf beside him. “To Amsterdam, yes? De Tovenaarsherberg?”

James scrunched his brow in thought. “Uhh… yes? That’s the inn, right?”

“I’m no expert,” the wizard said, and handed James an old, battered-looking water canteen. “It leaves in two minutes. Two francs. Step outside before it leaves.”

James took the canteen, and dug down in his pocket for the coins before plopping them down on the counter. “Thanks!” he said cheerfully. 

The wizard didn’t respond and turned back to his book. 

They all shuffled outside, Sirius giving his shoulder a few rolls. “Well he was charming.”

“So do we all just… keep our hands on it?” Peter asked, looking at the old canteen skeptically. 

“I think that’s the _only_ thing you have to do, Wormy,” Sirius said impatiently. 

Peter gave him a glare, which he ignored. But Remus looked at Sirius with tight-lipped admonishment, which made Sirius shrug his shoulders up by way of weak apology. 

“I dunno if it's a two-handed situation, or—” James began, but then cut himself off abruptly. “Shit it’s starting to hum, grab it!”

Immediately, Sirius and Remus and Peter all placed a hand on the canteen. (Peter placed both of his on it.)

“Everyone ready?” James asked, voice slightly raised above the growing sound of the hum, an excited grin on his face.

Sirius grinned back. “Rea—” he started to say, when he felt like he was suddenly pulled backwards by an immensely powerful unseen string.

He could see the vague shapes of James, Remus, and Peter swirling around him, but that was completely overshadowed by the feeling of being hurdled relentlessly through space, every which way. Sirius struggled to keep his hand on the portkey as he was pulled through a hurricane of pure propulsion, only to be abruptly and violently wrenched from it by another unseen force, as they were all dumped forcefully onto the ground of an alleyway. 

Sirius felt the wind get knocked out of him as he landed hard on his back. He let out a groan and clutched at his head, which still seemed to be spinning even if his body wasn’t. 

“Christ,” he heard Remus mutter, and opened his eyes to see that Remus was the only one of them standing, though he was slouched over and held his head in his hands. Peter was curled up into a ball on the ground by a large black bin bag, and James was on his hands and knees by the wall of the alleyway, groaning. 

“Fucking hell,” Sirius grumbled, and turned over onto his side, propping himself up onto his elbow. “Everyone else feel like shit?”

“Yep,” Remus said, putting his hands on his knees. 

James nodded in agreement. “At least it’s ov—” he was quickly cut off by a gag, as his body wretched and he vomited onto the pavement. 

Almost immediately after, Sirius heard a similar sound echoing off the other side of the alleyway as Peter threw up beside the bin bag. 

Sirius felt a horrible nauseating kick to his stomach, and leaned over as he, too, vomited and coughed onto the pavement. 

“Fuck!” James exclaimed between coughs. “Why—” but he was cut off by another wave of sick, surging out from his mouth. 

Sirius groaned and turned away, feeling that the sight of James vomiting repeatedly was only making him more nauseous, but to no avail. He was hit with another lurch of sickness, and vomited once more onto the ground. 

Peter let out another painful groan as he hacked and wretched again. 

“ _Why??_ ” Sirius exclaimed as soon as he could speak. From where his eyes were trained on the ground, he could see Remus’s feet shifting uncomfortably as he seemed to observe the chaos unfolding around him. 

“What’s happening??” Remus said above the sounds of coughing and retching. Sirius looked up to see Remus looking alarmed between the rest of them.

“Why aren’t you getting sick?” Sirius croaked, before getting overcome with nausea, and again expelling the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

“I don’t know!” Remus said, sounding nervous. “What should I do??”

“Moony—” James said, and spit onto the pavement. “You—” He vomited once more onto the ground, body doubling over in pain. 

“Oh my god,” Remus said, covering his mouth with his hands (in shock or disgust, Sirius couldn’t quite tell. Perhaps both).

“I hate this!” Peter wailed, and Sirius heard another spatter of vomit hit the ground. 

“Fuck” Sirius groaned. He felt another wave of nausea, but this time he only gagged and coughed. He took a couple of deep breaths, and found that while he didn’t feel entirely better, he was at least done with vomiting. 

James coughed and groaned as he was hit again with sickness. “What the hell am I even throwing up anymo—” Another groan. Another spatter onto the pavement. 

Sirius looked over to Peter, who was sitting up, finally, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before grimacing. “Did you not get sick, Moony?” he asked.

Remus shook his head, looking a mixture of incredibly concerned and wary over at James. “Not like that,” he said. 

“What, do werewolves have steel stomachs?” Sirius asked, spitting onto the ground and pushing himself up onto his knees. 

“Not something I’ve ever had to encounter before,” Remus said, and offered Sirius a hand. “But I wouldn’t be surprised.” 

Sirius took it gladly and pulled himself up. Remus’s hardy constitution and metabolism was getting increasingly more noticeable as they got older, in part because they had started drinking so much more. Where Sirius and James and Peter would be stumbling over their words after several drinks, Remus would appear as sober as ever after the same amount. And in the morning, when the other three were fighting off headaches and fuzzy-feeling tongues, Remus would be up and about as if he had had nothing more than a cup of tea before bed. It was at once fascinating, and infuriating.

“Thanks,” Sirius said, though he didn’t stand up fully, still hunching over with his hands on his knees.

Remus gave him a smile and went over to help Peter up.

Sirius sighed and looked over to James, who was still on his hands and knees, looking positively green. “You alright there, mate?”

James wretched again and threw up onto the ground, where there was now a concerningly large puddle of his sick. “Why…” he groaned.

“Shit,” Sirius said with a grimace. He walked over to him, careful to avoid the puddle. “Don’t feel any better?” 

“Maybe a little,” James croaked. But then he shook his head, and was sick again.

Sirius frowned, and kneeled down to offer James a hand on his shoulder. “I think we might need to take him to hospital,” he called over to Remus and Peter.

“Merlin, he’s still going?” Peter asked, surveying them with a wince. 

Remus frowned as well, and walked over to where James and Sirius were. He knelt beside Sirius, and touched the back of his hand to James’s forehead. He hummed in thought, and then sat back on his heels. “A little clammy, but I think that’s normal for Portkey Sickness. I think there’s a section on it in the travel guide, hold on,” he said, and stood up to rifle through James’s bag, which had landed a few feet behind him on the ground, thankfully away from the sick. His arm disappeared into the extended bottom of the bag, and after a moment re-emerged with the old, battered travel guide Fleamont Potter had leant them for their journey. 

“Let me see,” Remus said, flipping through the yellowed pages before landing on his desired spot. “Here,” he said, and began reading. “ _‘Travelers beware: when journeying via portkey, one may encounter the unpleasant side-effects known as Portkey Sickness. Symptoms include excessive vomiting, prolonged nausea, clammy skin, dizziness, trouble balancing, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, vivid dreams, night terrors,’_ dear god,” Remus said as he skimmed through the rest of the passage. “Well, it seems like it’ll only last for up to a day,” he said, closing the book. “But it looks like he’s not experiencing anything out of the ordinary. It says ginger might help with the nausea, though.”

James groaned and coughed again. “Need that,” he said as he was sick again, though, Sirius noted with a bit of disgust, not as much as he had been before.

“Well,” Sirius said, looking over at Remus. “Looks like his need for ginger is medical now.”

Remus snorted, as did Peter, as he walked over to the rest of them.

“Fuck you,” James whined, and let out another groan.

Sirius laughed, and patted his shoulder gently. “We’ll get you some after we get our room settled, yeah?”

James groaned and nodded, shuddering with another wave of nausea. 

~~~

De Tovenaarsherberg was magically hidden from the other inhabitants of the city. It was actually very similar to the charm used to disguise 12 Grimmauld Place—erasing it from the street to muggle on-lookers and only revealing itself to wizards who knew where to look for it, and the right password to provide. 

Sirius had gone ahead and procured another budget room for them with bunk beds, and came back to the alleyway around the corner with the keys. Remus and Peter were helping James stand on either side of him, though James still slouched considerably. 

Sirius gave James a pitying look. “Well, we’re on the ground floor, so at least you don’t have to struggle up any stairs.”

“The ground floor?” Remus asked. 

Sirius looked at him, and could have sworn there was a flicker of something in his eyes. A flash of some intense feeling. But it was gone before he could tell what it was. “Yeah,” he said, “It was the only one free that had four beds. Is… that ok?”

Remus nodded, “yeah yeah, no worries. Let’s just get Prongs settled,” he said. 

Sirius regarded Remus for a moment more before nodding as well. “Right. Yeah, I’ll get his bag.”

They shuffled in past the front desk of the inn, with James still looking incredibly green and sickly between Remus and Peter. 

The witch at the desk, a pretty and young brunette woman, looked up from where she had been tidying some papers and tutted as they passed. “Portkey?” she asked.

Sirius nodded. “Yep.”

The witch gave a pitying sigh. “Third one this week,” she said.

“We’ll clean any mess he makes, don’t worry,” Sirius assured her with a smile. 

James groaned, and it sounded a mixture of nausea and humiliation. 

Their room at the inn was much the same as it had been at the hostel in Zurich: two sets of bunk beds, a small kitchen area, and a bathroom. Though it was maybe a third of the size as their room in Alte Hexenstraße, and the sounds of the city were only barely muffled through the protective charms and old glass windows. 

They set James on one of the lower bunks, where he immediately curled into a fetal position and groaned. “Thisssfuckin awful,” James said, voice slurred and quiet. 

Sirius set James’s bag down beside the bed and knelt next to him. “Cheer up, mate. I bet the witch at the counter will hardly recognize you once you’re not green anymore.”

James groaned and gave him the back of his two fingers.

“We should go get something for him,” Remus said, setting down his bag as well. “I bet we can find some ginger at a muggle store around here. Someone should probably stay here with him, though.”

“I will,” Sirius said, making himself comfortable on the floor next to James’s bed. “I’ll hold his hair back and everything,” he smiled at James, who only groaned in response. 

Remus smiled as well. “You’re the only one with hair long enough for that,” he said, and reached down and ruffled Sirius’s hair with his hand.

It made Sirius’s heart stop for a moment. Had Remus ever done that before? Or was he just now noticing every little touch he received from him? Regardless, he was glad that his hair now hid most of his probably very red face.

Remus cleared his throat. “Right. Well. Wormtail, care to join me?” he asked, turning to Peter.

“Sure,” he said, but then he ran his tongue over his teeth with a grimace. “Just uh, let me brush my teeth first, yeah?”

Remus and Peter left a few minutes later, and Sirius sat with his back against James’s bed on the floor. Sirius swore he could still feel Remus’s touch lingering on his scalp. He ran his own fingers through his hair, pushing it out of his face, just to get his mind off of the feeling of Remus, and hoping it would banish his frivolous fixation.

A loud groan from James pulled Sirius further out of his reverie, and he watched as James abruptly got up from the bed and dashed to the bathroom. The door swung mostly closed behind him, but Sirius heard James cough, and then a sickening splatter into the toilet bowl. 

Sirius grimaced, and walked over to the bathroom door. “At least it’s not as rapid fire as before, eh?” he said, trying for optimism.

James groaned again, and Sirius heard the toilet flush. “I think I’m gonna need to stay in here a while…” James said miserably, and opened the door a fraction more. He looked paler and sweatier than Sirius had ever seen him. 

If Sirius was being honest with himself, he was growing concerned. He hated seeing his best friend laid up sick and in pain when he could do nothing to ease it. He sat down on the other side of the door, and crossed his legs. “Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

James sighed. “I’d love a distraction,” he said, coughing into the bowl once more.

“Ok,” Sirius said with a nod. “Like what?”

“Well,” James said, and managed to level him with a raised brow despite his discomfort. “You could tell me where your head’s been at the past few days, for a start.”

Sirius froze. “Uh…” he shook his head. “What?”

“You’ve been distracted,” James said, re-adjusting his glasses and pushing his hair away from his face. “Whenever you’re not talking with us, you’re… off somewhere.” He sighed. “Just tell me. Are you having your Moments again?”

Sirius shook his head. “No. I promise that’s not it,” he said, and felt incredibly guilty that James had been so concerned about him the past few days. “Really, it’s not. Sorry… didn’t mean to worry you or anything.”

James nodded, but the movement seemed to nauseate him, and he once again turned to the toilet to spew.

Sirius sighed. “We really don’t have to talk about—”

“ _We’re talking about it,_ ” James said firmly into the toilet bowl, and flushed again. He looked at Sirius more resolutely, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Tell me.”

Sirius groaned, and rested his head in his hand. “Don’t want to,” he muttered. 

“Too bad.”

Sirius took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can,” he said, quieter. 

“I know you can,” James said, and it was kind. 

Sirius looked up then, and James was looking back at him with a reassuring, yet pleading face.

“You can tell me anything,” James continued. “We’re brothers, remember?”

Sirius’s chest felt warm at James’s words, and he nodded, knowing he was right. “Yeah. We are.”

“So just let it out,” James said, giving him a small smile through all the discomfort he must have been feeling. “You know you can.”

Sirius studied James’s face, earnest and encouraging through the pale sweatiness of his complexion, and sighed again. “I… I’m pretty sure I fancy boys too,” he said. “Well. I fancy _a_ boy. It’s… it’s Remus. I fancy Remus. And I have no idea what to do.”

James studied Sirius for a moment, and seemed like he wanted to say something. Sirius waited anxiously, his heart hammering in his chest, as James opened and closed his mouth a few times, and then made a gagging sound, and turned once more to the toilet to vomit. 

Sirius had a brief moment of panic before James waved a hand at him. “Not ’cause ’f you, I pro—” Another gag, and James vomited again.

Sirius nodded, and waited for this round to finish.

James eventually let out a sigh, and flushed the toilet once more. He rested his elbow on the seat and looked at Sirius again, this time noticeably more thoughtful. “Thank you.”

Sirius frowned. “For what?”

“For telling me,” James said. “I know it was hard for you to do.”

Sirius took in James’s earnest smile, small but encouraging, and wondered what he ever did to deserve a friend like him. He gave back a small smile of his own, before letting out a sigh and drawing his knees up to his chin. “What do I do?” he asked quietly.

“Well, I’ve got a few questions, first,” James said, and he had the thoughtful look he got when he decided to dedicate his brainpower to something he deemed important. “Is it only Remus? I mean, is he the only one you’ve fancied?”

Sirius shrugged. “Far as I know,” he said. “Though I could have just been thick about it.” He had no idea how many other men in his life had been, or could have been, crushes of his. It made sense that there would have been some, but seeing as Remus took up most of his thoughts now it was hard to sort through. 

“Makes what happened in Zurich make a little more sense,” James said, his smile now a bit teasing. “You were jealous.”

“Yeah,” Sirius huffed. “Get that now, thanks.”

James chuckled, and he returned to thoughtfulness. “I mean…” he paused for a moment, “if it was anyone else, I’d say go for it, but—”

“But it’s Moony,” Sirius said with a sigh. “I know.”

They both sat in silence for a moment. Sirius could tell that James’s thoughts were on the same path of his own: that there were far more ways this would end up damaging their group than not. If Sirius approached Remus and he rejected him, it would undeniably cause a rift in the Marauders’s carefully constructed dynamic. If they somehow, by some miracle, ended up together, only to separate soon after, it would cause an even bigger rift. The only way to minimize the damage to the group was to either not say anything at all, or hope that, if they did end up together, it was for the long haul. Which Sirius couldn’t even begin to comprehend as a possibility.

“Well,” James said eventually, pulling Sirius out of his thoughts, “...how do you feel about him?”

Sirius frowned at him. “I just told you, didn’t I?”

“I _know_ , but you’ve gotta elaborate a bit,” James said, twirling his hand in an encouraging motion. “Is this just something that’ll pass? Or is it bigger than that?”

“I don’t know,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “I mean, it’s hard to.” He had cared about Remus, loved him as his friend, for so long it was hard to separate the feelings from each other clearly. He rested his forehead on his knees and sighed again. 

There was a long stretch of silence where neither of them said anything. Long enough that Sirius eventually looked up at James, expecting him to still be thinking things over, but was instead caught off-guard when he was met with a smile. 

Sirius regarded him warily. “What?”

“I think you should tell him,” James said. “When you’re ready.”

“ _What??_ ” Sirius repeated. “Prongs, why the hell would I do that?”

“I think it’s worth it,” he said with a shrug, his smile irritatingly smug yet genuine and kind at the same time in a way only James could manage. “I think it’s worth going for.”

Sirius shook his head in disbelief. “That’s… insane, come on,” he said. “You know how badly it could go. You just said so!”

“Ok, then don’t,” James said with a shrug. 

Sirius fisted his hands in his hair. “ _James_.”

“Well, those are your two options!” James replied. “I think you should go for it. I think you’re going to keep being miserable if you don’t. And!” James held up a hand when Sirius opened his mouth to interject, “I think our dear Moony will take it better than you’re worried he will.”

Sirius let out a sigh and slumped where he sat. “Easy for you to say. You asked Evans out every day last term.”

“Not _every_ day,” James corrected, sounding indignant. “I spaced them out rather chivalrously.”

“Sure.”

“The point being,” James said, waving away Sirius’s remark, “I think telling him, talking to Moony, is the only way to make this better.” 

Sirius looked at James, staring right back at him with an expression that dared Sirius to challenge the wisdom he had just delivered, and nodded. “Guess so,” he said half-heartedly.

There were footsteps just beyond the door, and a fumbling with the keys, and Peter and Remus entered the room, Remus carrying a small brown paper bag in hand. And promptly, all of Sirius’s anxieties had a human form once again.

“Moony!” James exclaimed, as much as he could through his croaky voice. “My savior! My knight in shining armor! My—” he was interrupted by a gag, and turned to the toiled to be sick again.

Remus gave James a pitying look. “Yep, that’s me,” he said, and walked over to the bathroom entrance beside where Sirius was sitting. “Got you a ginger beer, and some different ginger candies,” he said, handing the bag over to James. 

“And some snacks for later, if you feel any better!” Peter called from the other side of the room as he kicked off his shoes.

“Thanks, mate,” James said, flushing the toilet and giving Remus a small smile. “I am feeling a bit better already, actually.”

Remus looked down to Sirius, as if to see if this was true.

Sirius chuckled. “He’s been spewing less frequently, at least,” he said. 

Remus gave a small shrug. “Well, that’s something.” He sat down beside Sirius, his shoulder brushing up against his as he got settled.

James and Sirius exchanged the briefest of glances before James looked back at Remus. “You don’t have to sit here and watch me puke,” James said. 

“Well, we’re not going to explore the city without you either, so I suppose you’re just going to have to tolerate us,” Remus replied easily. 

“Yeah,” said Peter, shuffling over towards them and sitting next to Remus, closing the small semi-circle they had formed outside the bathroom door. “We’re not going without you, it’d be no fun.” He smiled at James and crossed his legs as he sat.

James looked between them all and smiled. “Thanks,” he said, and opened the bottle of ginger beer. “You really don’t have to, though. Don’t wanna ruin your first day here.”

“I mean,” Sirius said with a shrug, “this is only slightly more vomit than I anticipated for our first night in Amsterdam anyway. We’re just moving the schedule around a bit.”

Remus laughed, looking over at Sirius with his characteristic sharp yet warm smile. “Only _slightly_ more?”

Sirius laughed too, if only to cover up the way his chest had tightened at the sight of that smile.

~~~

James was sick most of the day. But somehow they managed to pass the time with just as much conversation and jokes as they would have out and about the city. They decided that tomorrow, they would have to go twice as hard at the city, with the first of Remus’s muggle museums in the morning and then a “coffee shop” in the afternoon, (which James and Sirius were particularly excited about) followed by a club in the evening. They managed to go out briefly that evening for something to eat, after James was feeling well enough, (though surprisingly, after the nausea had subsided, still not particularly hungry. Remus had chalked it up to James having simply lost his appetite after the whole ordeal, but James proposed that his bile was magically induced, and he hadn’t actually been vomiting anything up of substance. The debate lasted through dinner.)

After getting back to the inn and decimating the snacks Remus and Peter had bought earlier, they headed to bed, preparing for a long day ahead of them. 

But Sirius woke during the night to the faint smell of cigarette smoke. 

It wasn’t particularly strong, but his nose had become more finely tuned after becoming an animagus. At first he thought it must have been coming from outside, on the street or through one of the other rooms at the inn. But when he stirred and stretched, readying himself to roll over and go back to sleep, he saw that Remus was sitting in the windowsill, his book in his lap, and a hand-rolled cigarette between his fingers. 

It was by no means unusual for Remus to stay up late into the night reading. But Remus usually only smoked when he was stressed and needed to relax, or with friends. And the book in Remus’s lap was open, but Remus seemed focused entirely on the window, the city beyond it distorted by the concealment charms in place, muffled car horns wafting in from the late-night street. Sirius could see, by the faint ember of the cigarette in the dark room, that his hand was shaking. 

As quietly as he could, Sirius tugged down his sheets and swung his legs out of bed, carefully treading on the old wooden floor over to Remus. He didn’t look up when Sirius was beside him. 

Sirius stood there for a moment, just watching Remus stare out of the window. His grey-blue eyes were trained on the streets outside, though they looked too tired to really be taking anything in. Sirius reached out and gently put a hand on Remus’s shoulder. “You alri—” he began to whisper.

But Remus flinched at the touch and whipped his head around, eyes wide for a brief moment in panic. “Jesus,” he sighed as he took a moment to collect himself. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you walk over,” he said.

Sirius quickly took his hand away. “Sorry,” he said back. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“No that’s,” Remus shook his head. “It’s fine.” He gave Sirius a small smile, though he still seemed as tired as ever. “Why’re you up? It must be half three.”

Sirius gave him a smile, and gestured to his nose and then to Remus’s cigarette. “Snout of a dog.”

Remus looked down at his cigarette and frowned. “I really shouldn’t be smoking in here, should I?”

“I doubt anyone else would smell it,” Sirius said with a shrug, sitting down opposite Remus on the windowsill. It was a tight fit, and Sirius had to dangle one leg off the side. His other leg brushed up against Remus’s, though, and he felt heat rush to his face. “Not uh… as spacious as the window in Gryffindor Tower, eh?”

Remus chuckled. “No, I suppose not.” 

They had sat like this so many times last term. Late at night, when Sirius couldn’t sleep, and he just needed someone to help sort through all the anger and loneliness that had been swirling about in his head.

Remus reached out and offered the cigarette to Sirius, as had been the custom on those nights so many months ago. 

Sirius took it gratefully, but only took one drag before passing it back. “It looks like you need the rest of it,” he said, in what he hoped came off as a lighthearted tone. 

Remus paused his hand for a moment before he took it back from Sirius. He inhaled, his mouth a thin line around the dwindling cigarette. “Really, I’m fine. I’ll head to bed soon.”

“Moony,” Sirius said. “Come on.” 

Remus looked back at Sirius, brow lined with a self-conscious worry that so often plagued his face when he was stressed, and shook his head. “It’s not important.You should go to bed.”

“ _Moony_ ,” Sirius repeated, more knowing this time. 

Remus sighed, and then took another drag of the cigarette. “I don’t… If I tell you, you have to promise not to laugh. Alright?”

Sirius nodded. “’Course,” he whispered back. 

Remus nodded as well, and turned to look out the window once more. “You know who Fenrir Greyback is.”

Whatever Sirius had been expecting Remus to say, it wasn’t that. “Um… yeah,” he said back dumbly. Greyback’s name had been in the Daily Prophet once every month at least since the spring. He, and his slowly growing pack, had been blamed for the brutal attacks against two prominent wizarding families. He had claimed responsibility personally for the outright murder of another child that April. Quickly, Greyback was becoming the defacto paragon for Werewolves, and everything dangerous and savage and sadistic supposedly inherent about them. His name had only existed as a whisper only months before. 

“He’s the one who bit me,” Remus said, putting the cigarette to his lips once more. “When I was a kid.”

“Fuck,” Sirius said, before he could stop himself. He felt sick to his stomach. All of the Prophet reporting had been consistent in describing the absolute carnage Greyback left behind. It made his blood run cold, knowing Remus had experienced it first-hand. “That’s… why didn’t you tell us?”

Remus shook his head. “I didn’t know it was him, until recently.” Still, Remus looked out the window.

Sirius was silent for a moment. He could see that Remus’s fingers were shaking again, ever so slightly, as they held the nearly finished cigarette. But his back was as straight and firm as a rod. “...how did you find out?” Sirius asked.

Remus took one last puff on the cigarette before stubbing it out on the windowsill. “...Lyall told me,” he said, his voice gone even quieter. “That’s what our fight was about, mostly.” 

Sirius frowned. “Because he told you?” he asked, his voice just as quiet now.

“Because he kept it from me for so long,” Remus said. Even through a whisper, Sirius could tell there was a fierce undercurrent of frustration in his voice. “And he didn’t tell me the whole story. Greyback… ” he shook his head. “I don’t want to get into all of it, but he sought me out. Found me, on purpose that night.”

The sickness Sirius felt earlier intensified. He wanted to ask why; why Remus, why Lyall had kept it from him for so long, but he knew it wasn’t his place. He waited for Remus to continue.

“...Greyback broke into my bedroom,” Remus said, eyes still trained on the blurred street outside. “I had cracked the window open. I used to like the feel of the breeze when I slept… That’s how he got in.” Remus flexed his fingers, and Sirius could tell he was missing his cigarette. “It happened so fast. I barely knew what was going on by the time it was over. I just remember my dad coming in and getting rid of Greyback, and the pain, and all the blood… I passed out after that.”

Sirius was beginning to wonder why on earth Remus had begun this conversation with ‘promise not to laugh.’ Whatever sick and intense emotion he was feeling, it wasn’t going to prompt laughter. 

But Remus sighed, and pulled his legs closer to his chest, looking for all the world like he was incredibly embarrassed by something. He still didn’t look at Sirius. “I had nightmares after that. Fairly frequently. We moved, as soon as I was well enough to, but I still had dreams where Greyback would break in and attack me. I barely slept. I just kept waking up, screaming…” he sighed, and it sounded shaky. “It only really got better when I moved my bedroom up to the attic of our new place. That was my mum’s idea. I know it’s silly, but I felt it would be harder for Greyback to get me when I was a few floors up. It made me feel… safe. Even though I know now he’d be able to get to me any way he pleased if he really tried hard enough.” 

Remus glanced at Sirius briefly before turning back to the window, but through the dark Sirius could see the redness of his cheeks slowly spreading. “It’s stayed with me, though. A silly fear of sleeping on the ground floor. I suppose it counts as a phobia, seeing as it’s so nonsensical. I thought I had gotten over it, mostly, but… it’s been on my mind more, lately. Because of everything. Finally, Remus turned to look at Sirius, pleading and embarrassed. “I know it’s a silly thing to be hung up about. Out of all the things that could bother me, I mean. That this is what stuck.”

Sirius looked back at Remus, who was looking more anxious by the second, and placed his hand over Remus’s where it rested on the windowsill. “I don’t think it’s silly,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “Or stupid, or anything. I think it makes sense.”

His heart sped up, when he realized what he had just done, but he refused to back down from it. Sirius was a person who showed casual affection with touch—a trait he had developed from James after a childhood of not being touched at all except in cases of discipline. He touched and hugged his friends enough that he hoped the act came off as just another such instance; a friend wanting to comfort another friend. He wasn’t brave enough to make it anything else yet. But at the same time he wanted Remus to feel his words, to feel how Sirius didn’t judge him for his fears, and how fiercely he wanted to protect him from them. 

Remus looked surprised at the gesture for a moment, and Sirius heard a small intake of breath when their hands connected. He glanced down at their hands briefly before looking back up at Sirius, and he looked hopeful. “...Yeah?” he asked, still sounding unsure of himself. 

Sirius nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and gave a small smile. “Honestly I think it’s amazing you don’t have more things like that.”

Remus chuckled, and let out a sigh. “I didn’t say I didn’t have more,” he said. 

“Well I say that’s allowed,” Sirius said, matter-of-factly. He gave Remus’s hand a small squeeze, in a brief moment of courage. “I say you’re allowed to be afraid of some things because you’re already the bravest out of all of us, by far.”

Remus looked surprised by that. He shook his head and let out another chuckle. “I hardly think—”

“No, Remus, shut it, you are,” Sirius said more adamantly. “James is brave, sure, but he’s had it the easiest out of all of us. Nothing to really prove. Me, I’m brave out of boredom, mostly. It’s more dare than anything. And Peter—”

“Be nice.”

“Well you get my point, right?” Sirius finished with a light laugh. “You’ve been through enough. Give yourself some slack. Because if any of that happened to any of us, I doubt we’d be handling it half as well as you are.”

Remus smiled. He turned his hand over, and gave Sirius’s hand a small squeeze back. “Thank you,” he said. 

Sirius hoped Remus couldn’t feel the way his pulse jumped at the gesture. He smiled back. “’Course,” he said. 

They sat in silence, their hands clasped and smiling at each other, with the distorted street light filtering in from the window. Sirius thought it was almost painful, that he wanted to touch Remus so much more than he was but could only offer his hand for comfort. At the same time, he realized they had been holding each other’s hand for far longer than he had ever held anyone else’s. Even James’s. He didn’t know how long was too long for Remus to think that there was anything besides friendship behind the gesture. But he couldn’t be the one to pull away first. It was up to Remus.

Remus took a deep breath and stretched his legs out a bit in the windowsill, pulling his hand away to re-adjust the book in his lap. Sirius was relieved he didn’t have to dwell on it any longer. (Now, however, he was preoccupied by the way their legs were brushing up against each other.) “I’ll probably be up for a while,” he said, opening his book again. “You don’t have to stay up.”

“Well,” Sirius said, settling back against the wall, “I’m not tired either. I think I’ll stay up for a while too.”

Remus gave Sirius a knowing look. “You don’t have to, really.”

“I know,” Sirius said. “I told you, I’m just not tired yet.” He smiled and nodded over to Remus’s book. “How about you read your book to me. That’ll get us both to fall asleep.”

Remus laughed. “Rude,” he protested, though he opened up his book. “It’s plenty riveting once you get into it.”

“I’m sure,” Sirius said with a grin. He nudged Remus’s knee with his own lightly, encouraging him. “Really though. How’s Bloom doing?”

Remus raised a brow at Sirius. “You remembered his name?”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug, hoping it sounded nonchalant. He tried to remember everything Remus told him about the books he was reading, knowing he didn’t have the dedication to read them himself. They had something they could talk about together, then. 

“Well,” Remus said, turning back to the book and holding it up as he flipped through a few pages. “He’s doing fine, all things considering. He’s eating lunch now.”

“‘Riveting’,” Sirius said. 

Remus laughed. “Shush. It is,” he said. 

“Prove it, then,” Sirius said, a smile tugging at his lips. “Read it to me. Just from where you left off.”

Remus raised a brow again. “You really want me to?”

Sirius shrugged. “Yeah, why not?” he said, hoping it sounded casual. 

Remus smiled, and flipped back to his place in the giant book. “Alright, if you say so.” He waited for Sirius to settle more comfortably against the windowsill before he began reading, in his quiet lilting voice. “ _A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom’s heart,”_ Remus recited. “ _He raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet. His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly, longingly. Wine._ ”

Sirius smiled, and watched as Remus read through with his nose in the book, his eyes softened by the comfortable repetition of words on a page. 


	8. On The Town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I uploaded this one a day late! Just so everyone knows, chapter updates might change to be every other week. I'll keep you posted though!
> 
> Also, I have a Masters in Art History, so this chapter was a lot of fun to write! 
> 
> CW: Mild drug use in this chapter (weed)

**VII**

**ON THE TOWN**

Sirius’s face was warm. There were small puffs of air washing over him, and he edged his nose closer to it, eager for the warmth to cover more of him. His toes were cold, and he curled them up and tucked his legs back where he laid. 

It was a hard surface beneath him. Not exactly pleasant, but the warmth that was falling over him made up for it somewhat. Sirius moved closer to it still, feeling more hints of heat tease at the surface of his skin. 

A bed creaked, loudly. Sirius opened his eyes. 

He was on the floor. 

He was on the floor by the windowsill, laying down, next to Remus, who was still asleep, and breathing softly onto his face. 

Sirius blinked, and sat up quickly. He guessed it was early morning, from the light coming in from the window. They were all supposed to wake up fairly early to get to the museum, James and Peter would be getting up soon, he’d have to find some way to explain—

“ _Pst!_ ” 

Sirius turned to see James sitting up in his bed across the room, hair ruffled every which way, staring back at him with wide eyes. 

“ _What the hell happened?_ ” James mouthed slowly and emphatically to Sirius, gesturing to him and Remus on the floor.

Sirius put up his hands in surrender and mouthed back, “ _We were talking and we fell asleep!_ ”

“ _On the floor??_ ”

“ _He was sitting by the window!_ ” Sirius retorted, and then sighed. “ _Do I move??_ ”

Remus stirred on the floor, letting out a small groan. 

James shook his head frantically and motioned downwards with his hand. “ _Lay down! Lay down!_ ”

Sirius didn’t have a moment to think, let alone protest, before he laid back down next to Remus. He heard James scurry back under his covers as well just as Remus blearily opened his eyes. 

Remus yawned and stretched before turning over onto his back, and closing his eyes once again. Sirius had half thought he’d gone to sleep again when he heard Remus, voice cracking with sleep, say quietly, “Padfoot.”

Sirius turned his head on the floor towards Remus, his heart beating rapidly in his ears. “Yeah?”

“Why are we on the floor?” he asked.

Sirius snorted. “I think we fell asleep on the windowsill, but we must have moved to the floor eventually.”

“Well,” he said, stretching once more, (this time Sirius heard several pops of joints) “that was far more sleep that I thought I was going to get.” He opened his eyes again and turned to Sirius. “...Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what?” Sirius replied, stretching a bit himself. “I just wanted to hear your book.” He smiled at Remus.

Remus smiled back, and sat up. “We should… probably go back to our beds. James and Peter will be waking up soon.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, sitting back up and glancing over to where a tuft of James’s black hair stuck out from beneath the covers. He stood, wincing a little at the stiffness of his back, and offered a hand to Remus, who’s back must have been at least twice as sore. “Sorry we couldn’t have ended up on something softer.” 

Year after year, Remus’s monthly transformations wreaked havoc on his joints and bones. In their earlier years at school, Remus had bounced back quickly after each full, only having to contend with the aftermath of the Wolf’s scratches and bites for the most part. But as he grew older, Sirius noticed the lingering pain in Remus’s body from transforming etched in the winces he made when he stood up, or after running too far for too long too soon after the full. Remus had joked about getting a cane at one point, and they had all laughed, but Sirius honestly worried it would be an inevitability. For all of the strength Remus’s condition seemed to give him, it seemed to cripple him just as much.

Remus took Sirius’s hand gladly, and pulled himself up with a grunt and a sigh. “No worries there,” he said with an easy smile. “We’ll just have to pick somewhere more comfortable next time.” 

Sirius froze.

Remus seemed to have realized what he said and regretted it instantly. He shook his head, holding up a hand in apology. “Not like—I wasn’t trying to imply anything, I promise—or make you stay up tomorrow, you don’t have to! I just meant… beds are… _there_ , and… not… the floor… But you don’t—I wasn’t saying anything like…” he shut his mouth, his cheeks growing redder. “I’m going to… get dressed,” he murmured bleakly, turning away from Sirius.

Sirius reached out, placing a hand on Remus’s shoulder before he could fully turn away. “I got it,” he said, and hoped his smile was as reassuring as he meant it to be, and that his own blush wasn’t too apparent. “I got it, don’t worry.”

Remus looked back at him, embarrassment clear and plain on his face as he did his best to smile back. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he said, much quieter. 

“You didn’t,” Sirius assured him, squeezing his shoulder lightly in another moment of boldness. “I promise. And we’ll figure out what to do tomorrow night, ok?”

Remus’s smile looked a little more genuine, and he nodded. 

There was a yawn, and Peter’s blonde head poked out from beneath the covers on the top bunk. His eyes squinted in the fresh sunshine streaming in from the window, and looked between Sirius and Remus. “Issit already time to gedup?”

Sirius sighed and took his hand away from Remus’s shoulder. “Sure does look like it, Wormy,” He said, turning to glare at Peter. He could see Remus press his lips into a thin disapproving line at his curtness.

Peter only groaned and flopped back onto the bed. 

Another yawn, this one more clear and emphasized, and James turned over in bed to look at Sirius and Remus. James did his best to look just as tired as Peter, but it was a poor imitation, not the least in part because he still had his glasses on. “Morning, boys,” he said, his voice clearly not as weighted down by sleep as it ought to have been. 

“Morning,” Remus said, before heading over to his bag, his back turned to the rest of them as he pulled out clothes for the day. “Sleep well?” 

“Yeah,” James said, running his hand through his hair and adjusting his glasses. He glanced quickly at Sirius. “Did uh… did you?”

Sirius gave James the most threatening glare he could muster. 

“Yeah,” Remus said, though he rubbed at where his neck met his shoulder. “Just a little sore.”

James’s eyes widened. “ _Oh_?”

Sirius swatted James on the shoulder. 

James grimaced, and turned to pout at Sirius. 

“Yeah, must have slept funny,” Remus said, ignorant of the interaction behind him as he pulled out a pair of corduroy trousers.

“Right, well,” Sirius cut in, just as James opened his mouth to ask another question. “Guess we should grab breakfast before heading to that muggle museum.” 

“Which one is that, again?” Peter asked, poking his head out once more from the cocoon of his sheets. 

“The van Gogh Museum,” Remus said, as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. (Sirius had to force his eyes not to linger on Remus’s lithe torso as he pulled on a button-up shirt.)

“Right,” James nodded. Then paused. “...Remind us what a ‘Vango’ is, Moony?”

Remus’s fingers paused over the buttons of his shirt. “Vincent van Gogh,” he said. “He was a Dutch painter in the late nineteenth century.” Remus made quick work of the rest of the buttons, and picked up the corduroy trousers. “I think you’ll like his work, it’s very different from any wizard paintings you’ve seen, I’m sure.”

Sirius smiled. He wasn’t sure how Remus still managed to keep a relatively level head when dealing with the rest of their lack of muggle knowledge after so many years. (Discussions of electricity aside.)

“Different how?” Peter asked, frowning. “A painting is a painting, isn’t it? I mean, I know it doesn’t _move_ but…” 

“You’ll see,” Remus said, smiling. 

~~~

“ _Merlin_ , Moony,” James said, wrinkling his nose as he looked up at the harsh lines of the square staircase, painted as stark a white as the walls and ceiling. “What the hell did they do to this place??”

“It’s done in the Modern style,” Remus explained calmly, as he looked around the open ascending levels at the entryway himself. Sirius saw that his eyes were bright with something, darting around and taking in every inch of the bizarre space. “There’s a little paragraph on it in the pamphlet, if you’re interested.”

“The stairs don’t move either?” Peter mumbled, and it sounded almost like a whine of disappointment. 

“They sure don’t,” Remus said with a laugh, as he turned to his own pamphlet in his hand. “There’s just a bit more walking.”

Sirius did a double-take as he looked over Remus’s shoulder at the pamphlet. “ _That_ , is what the paintings look like?” he asked, utterly confounded by a black and white reproduction of a swirly, paint-globbed looking portrait.

“Yes,” Remus said with a small sigh, folding the pamphlet back up again. “Look, you’re all always asking to do more ‘muggle stuff,’ right? I’m just throwing you into the deep end with this.” He gave them all an encouraging smile. “I promise, this will be the strangest museum we go to on the trip. I think you’ll have fun if you just… have an open mind about it.”

Sirius and James and Peter all exchanged looks of uncertainty. They all _wanted_ to have a good time at the museum, they were just unsure of where to begin with something so utterly opposite to everything they had grown up with. Even Sirius, who clung to muggle culture as the chief means of his rebellion against his family, found the museum’s repetitively square architecture and unrefined paintings quite strange. 

Remus sighed again. “I happen to know Lily Evans admires van Gogh’s _Sunflower_ paintings. We’ve talked about it before.”

James stood up a little straighter. 

“Fuck,” Sirius grumbled. 

They immediately went to the _Sunflower_ painting. It was five floors up, and Sirius swore he never saw James climb a set of stairs more energetically in his life. When Remus showed them to the painting, James stepped close to the canvas, examining it with narrowed eyes and his chin in his hand. He tilted his head side to side, as if getting different angles would help him decipher the meaning of the work, but eventually sighed and turned to Remus. “Moony,” he said, gesturing to the painting with his hand, “help me out here.”

Remus nodded towards the right of the painting. “There’s a label over there,” he said. “You should read it.”

James huffed, but turned to read the label. After a moment of reading, he looked back at the painting. Then, back at the label. Then to Remus. “So…” he ventured, uneasily. “It’s… about… color?”

Remus smiled. “A lot of his paintings were studies on color, but try not to think of it in terms of what it’s about,” he said, and stepped over next to James. “With muggle paintings, they don’t have any sort of enchantments to help them render an image. They just have to practice until they can get it right.” Remus gestured to the painting, leaning his head towards James’s as if he were telling him a secret. “And they’ve got to practice with color, too. So, what van Gogh did was try and see if he could capture the feeling of these sunflowers using mostly yellow, and with the thickness of the paint, to make it look more real. He knew this wasn’t how the room really looked, or how petals really posed, but he wanted to capture the _feeling_ the sunflowers gave him, and to push himself to capture it with mostly one color.”

Sirius watched as Remus explained the painting more to James, patiently listening when James asked him something, and going over and re-phrasing what he had said before in a way James would understand. Sirius wondered where Remus ever learned his patience, or how he ever learned so much about anything. It seemed like he had always done some sort of reading on whatever it was they encountered on their trip, and then somehow found the time to become an expert on it. But never in a way that was showy or elitist; it was the sheer aspect understanding new things that seemed to excite him, not his ability to rattle off the information. 

After a few minutes, James took a step back from the painting and looked at it again. This time, his eyes roamed the canvas, and he seemed to appreciate every detail he roamed over. “That… yeah, that makes sense, I think,” he said, and turned to Remus with a smile. “Kind of brilliant, actually.”

“Great,” said Remus, smiling. “There’s other sketches he did for the sunflowers on this floor too, I think, if you want to check those out.”

“We’re staying on this floor for a while no matter what’s up here,” Peter said with finality. “I am not climbing those weird glass-lined stairs again.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, but before he could get a quip out, Peter had already followed after James as he began his search for the other sunflower works. “Well,” Sirius sighed, “You’ve got Prongs on a mission now.”

Remus’s smile had turned into a full blown smirk, now forcibly holding back laughter. “Whatever gets him to enjoy his time here.”

Sirius folded his arms, narrowing his eyes at Remus. “You never talked to Evans about the paintings, did you?”

Remus let out a snort that turned into bubbling, light laughter. “Who’s to say she _doesn’t_ like them?”

Sirius let out a laugh as well, and punched Remus lightly on the arm. “Cheeky bastard,” he muttered.

They walked around the museum, each taking different routes and calling over the others when they found something amusing. Peter became frustrated at a painting with a woman who’s eyes seemed very crooked, even after Remus tried to explain it. James, meanwhile, seemed to be becoming more and more enamored with “muggle art” with every painting he passed, calling Sirius over to talk about how “brilliant” everything was. (Remus’s scheme seemed to have worked too well.)

Sirius walked around the floors, hands in his pockets, taking in a few galleries by himself. He found he’d grown to like the paintings, mostly, after Remus had talked about them more. The bold strokes of thick, radiant color seemed like a slap in the face to everything Sirius knew about what paintings were supposed to look like, and he had to appreciate the tenacity of it all.. 

He was turning out of a gallery when he saw Remus, sitting on a bench in front of a larger canvas. Sirius had seen that area of the hall be pretty heavy with foot traffic earlier, but it seemed to have died down, leaving Remus alone to contemplate the work in front of him. 

Sirius walked closer to the bench, standing a few feet behind Remus to look at the painting for himself. It was a dark work, all earthy browns and greens, barely illuminating the weathered and dirty looking people around the table. It seemed sad, to Sirius. 

He walked up to the bench, finally. Sirius knew that Remus could already tell he was there, because he always could, but he cleared his throat anyway. “Mind if I sit?”

Remus looked up at him and smiled, replying with an easy shrug. “Not at all,” he said.

Sirius sat down beside him on the bench, hands in his jean pockets and careful to sit at least a person’s width away. 

“Just had to rest for a bit,” Remus said, leaning back on his hands and stretching out one leg. “Standing for too long’s not good on these old joints,” he said with a laugh. 

Sirius laughed a little as well, though it wasn’t very genuine. It was always hard to gauge how much pain Remus was ever in, because he was always so determined to downplay it with a laugh or a shrug. 

They looked at the painting together for a moment in silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius could see that the smile hadn’t faded from Remus’s face as he continued to take in the gloomy-looking work. “Alright, Professor Moony,” Sirius said to break the silence. “Tell me about this one.”

Remus chuckled. “I’ve bothered you all enough today,” he said. “I’m sure the label does a sufficient job.”

“No, come on,” Sirius said smiling. “It’s better when you do it.” 

After he the words came out of his mouth, he tensed. That had sounded much more forward than he had intended.

But Remus only laughed again. “Ok, ok,” he said, apparently unbothered by Sirius’s words. “This is _The Potato Eaters._ It’s one of his most famous works.”

Sirius frowned and leaned forward, closer to the painting. “Is that what they’re eating?” 

“Yep, all cut up on the plate there,” Remus said, pointing at the painting.

Sirius looked a little closer, and eventually was able to make out distinct yellow and brown dabs of paint on the plate. “Huh,” he said, and leaned back on the bench.

“He wanted to paint the people as dirty-looking as the food they pulled up from the ground,” Remus continued, looking at the painting with his head cocked to the side. “To make it seem like they had earned their food. He didn’t want them to look pretty, or easy on the eye. He wanted them to look real. So he painted them in the dim light of the cottage, all green and brown, so that they matched their hard-earned food.” 

Sirius mirrored Remus’s head position, and looked at the painting again. The bulginess of the figures’ noses and chins and the knobbiness of their fingers seemed to make more sense, then. “Kind of a downer of a painting,” he said.

Remus shrugged. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think it’s… comforting.”

Sirius turned to look at Remus with a raised brow. “How, exactly?”

“Hear me out,” Remus said with another laugh. “I know it’s not supposed to be, really. But he painted the family all coming together after a hard day of work, and they’re all talking and passing food. They don’t look particularly sad, even if van Gogh wanted them to be. They’re not ‘The Potato Eaters,’ to each other. They’re just having dinner. Perfectly civilized and content.”

Sirius looked back at the painting. He supposed some of the people seemed to be on the verge of smiling. The family was crowded around a small table meant for only half their number, underneath the single lamp hanging from the ceiling, in a dingy single-room cottage, eating only potatoes and tea. The fact that Remus was able to look past the setting, and take comfort in the fact that they all seemed happy with their lot, was maybe the most ‘Remus’ response Sirius could have expected from him. 

Sirius turned to Remus, and smiled. “I think I’ve told you before that you think too much,” he said. 

Remus laughed and gave a small shrug. “That’s probably true,” he said, and looked a little embarrassed, his neck and cheeks turning just a little redder. 

“No, it’s…” Sirius interjected, before figuring out what he wanted to say. “It’s… great, actually. No one’s got a brain like you, Moony.”

Remus looked back at Sirius, his eyes a little wider with surprise, searching Sirius’s face for something before he smiled. “... Thanks,” he said finally.

“’Course,” Sirius said, and returned the smile. He felt then, that he had been looking at Remus too long for it to be considered normal or appropriate, and turned away quickly and cleared his throat. 

Remus sat up a little straighter on the bench, and Sirius heard him clear his throat as well. “So,” Remus said, turning back to the painting in front of them, as a few more patrons crowded around it, “did um… did you end up having a good time, here?”

“Um,” Sirius began, trying and very much failing to remember any of his time at the museum before this very moment, “yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Good,” Remus said, nodding his head. “I’m, um… glad.”

“Yeah,” Sirius repeated. “It was… different. Old Vincent was a bit of a rebel, wasn’t he?”

Remus laughed. “I think that’s an apt word to describe him.” He stretched out his legs, crossing them in front of him. “Speaking of which, did you know that David Bowie is also quite a fan of van Gogh?”

Sirius’s head whipped back around to Remus. “Rea—?” but then he stopped himself, upon seeing the smug smile on Remus’s face. “You’re a shameless lying bastard,” he said with a laugh, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

Remus let out a cackle, taking the punch in stride. “You looked so excited!” he said between bursts of laughter.

_Merlin_ , Sirius loved Remus’s laugh. He seldom let it get as loose and free sounding as it was then, bouncing off the concrete floors and freshly plastered walls. Sirius wanted so desperately to keep hearing it, and was about to shove Remus in retaliation, but was interrupted by the sound of a guard shouting at a patron. “What did I say?? No touching!”

Sirius and Remus both turned and looked over in the direction of the guard, who was, apparently, reprimanding Peter, who had both his hands up in eager surrender.

Remus’s laughter died down with a sigh. “Well,” he said, “I think that might be our cue to leave.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed reluctantly, standing up from the bench. “I’ll go back to the flower paintings to collect James. Make sure Wormy doesn’t get arrested, I guess.”

~~~

“How was I supposed to know I wasn’t supposed to touch the paintings?? We touch them at school all the time!”

“There were signs!” Sirius exclaimed once they were outside the museum. “Everywhere!”

“They were in Dutch!” Peter defended.

“There were drawings with a hand crossed out!”

“Well what was that supposed to mean?? _‘No hands’_?? I mean honestly!” Peter threw up his arms in exasperation. 

James cackled. “Well, at least you started poking them near the end, Wormy,” he said, patting Peter on the back. 

Peter grumbled and crossed his arms. 

Sirius was about to let out another snide remark when Remus put his hand on his shoulder, as if to deter him.

“Well,” Remus said, “we’re fairly close to the coffee shop now, if that’s something you’re all up for.”

Sirius and James exchanged grins. Last year, Benjy Fenwick regaled the Gryffindor common room with tales of his visit to Amsterdam with his cousins. And among the wild, likely embellished, stories of prostitutes, sex theaters, and peep shows, there were stories of coffee shops. Benjy explained, much to everyone’s disbelief and wonder, that in Amsterdam you could simply walk into a coffee shop, buy a load of green, and be on your merry way. Sirius had pressed him for details, and eventually Benjy admitted that it wasn’t _every_ coffee shop—there were specific ones you had to go to. And you had to smoke while you were in the shop. 

Regardless of the concessions, Sirius and James thought it was a grand idea, and had been looking forward to this portion of the trip especially for some time. 

“Right then,” James said, still grinning. “I feel like I could go for a ‘cappuccino,’ don’t you boys?”

Sirius snorted. “The epitome of smooth as always, Prongs,” he said, elbowing James as they turned to walk in the direction of the coffee shop. 

None of them, to Sirius’s knowledge, had ever smoked grass before. And out of the four of them, Sirius and Remus were the only ones who smoked cigarettes. Remus had picked up the habit the summer before, and had arrived back at school with enough rolling paper and tobacco to last him until the winter holidays. Sirius had smoked whenever he was offered the opportunity, which came in increasing frequency after third year at any of the parties hosted in the Gryffindor common room by upperclassmen. It was only after he moved in with the Potters he was afforded enough personal freedom to be able to buy his own packs from the neighboring muggle town’s general store. 

Peter and James had, of course, tried smoking as well, but Peter was eventually confounded by how anyone would find it enjoyable, declaring that the smoke smelled too strong and all the coughing wasn’t worth whatever benefits the cigarettes supposedly gave the smoker. 

James smoked whenever the social situation called for it, though he didn’t ever actively seek it out. Sirius had always gotten the impression that James was always a little more straight-laced in his habits than he wanted to let on to the others: he had nothing to rebel against, no inborn desire to turn his back on the social decorum he had been brought up with. Which didn’t mean he was never up for a night of heavy drinking, but that the desire came less often than it did for Sirius, and he was able to pull himself back. (In fact, the desire to get blackout drunk seemed to come a lot less often for Peter and Remus as well in comparison to Sirius, but Sirius never tried to dwell on it.)

Regardless of the differing levels of experience, they were all eager to try out something they didn’t have regular access to at school, and without the possibility of getting punished for it. They had the freedom of irresponsibility and rebellion without any of the hassle. 

To Sirius’s surprise (and slight disappointment), this particular coffee shop was in more of a posh neighborhood than he expected, though he supposed they would have more than enough time to explore the red light district later. The bright yellow sign hanging out over the pavement stuck out against the older brickwork of the surrounding buildings, as did the brightly painted yellow stripes of the facade. When they stopped by the entrance, James pulled open the door valiantly, and gestured for the others to go inside with a wide grin on his face.

Remus rolled his eyes and Peter chuckled as they stepped inside. Sirius elbowed James once more. “Quit being a berk,” he said, though he still smiled as he followed in after the others. James laughed and closed the door behind them. 

It was still early afternoon, so the shop wasn’t nearly as crowded as Sirius had expected it to be. There was a young man at the counter, absently scrubbing at the surface with a rag, who raised his head and seemed to withhold a sigh as the four of them made it to the counter. “Hello,” he said, noticeably in English. 

All four of them looked at one another, having not decided yet which one of them was going to do the talking in the shop yet. 

Finally, James stepped forward. “Yes. Hello. We’d like um, that is, we were interested in buying some of your—”

The man at the counter held up a hand indicating for James to stop. “I know,” he said, and nodded his head over to a man sitting at the table closest to the counter. 

The four of them looked over at the man at the table, who was a bit older scruffy-looking and giving them a palpably judgmental once-over. 

James frowned, and opened his mouth to speak again, said, but Remus cut in. “Thank you,” he said, and walked over to the man at the table. 

Sirius smirked and patted James on the shoulder. “Nicely done.”

James frowned harder and elbowed Sirius away from him. 

Sirius, James, and Peter all huddled behind Remus as he leaned over to speak to the man at the table. “We’ll have a gram of whatever’s cheapest, please,” Remus said in a hushed tone. 

The man at the table nodded and opened up a small cardboard box that had been resting on the table to reveal several small plastic baggies filled with what looked like different kinds of grass. The man picked up one, and gave Remus the price in an equally discreet tone. Remus fished in his pockets for the right amount of gilders, paid the man and took the small bag. “You can pay me back later, it wasn’t that much,” Remus said as he turned back to the rest of them. 

James blinked at Remus, eyes shifting from the small bag in his hand to Remus’s face. “ _That’s_ all we need?” he asked. 

Sirius heard the man at the counter snort behind them. 

Remus nodded, giving James a small smile. “Should be,” he said, and nodded towards a table at the back of the shop. “Come on.”

They all sat down at the table, and Remus dug out his rolling papers from his pocket. Peter’s eyes were wide with something like amazement, and leaned over and whispered to Remus, “Have you smoked grass before, Moony?”

Remus looked up at Peter, tilting his head inquisitively as he paused in his shaping of the joint. “Oh. Yes, I thought I told you all that.”

Sirius balked at Remus. “You bloody well did not!” 

“When??” James nearly exclaimed. 

Remus laughed. “Over the winter holidays. There’s a bloke in town back at home who sells it.” At the persistence of the others’ bewildered faces, he shrugged, looking a little self-conscious then. “I heard it helped with joint pain, so I sought it out.”

James shook his head, looking down at the table. “I can’t believe Moony’s cooler than me,” he said with earnest dejection in his voice. 

“Shut it, everyone’s cooler than you,” Sirius replied with a nudge, encouraged by the smile that re-appeared on Remus’s face. “Even Wormy.”

“‘Even’?” Peter repeated indignantly.

“Alright, settle down,” Remus said jokingly as he finished shaping the joint. He had the paper rolled and licked and twisted shortly thereafter, and took out his muggle lighter to the expectant faces of the other boys. “Shall I take the first puff then?”

“We’d be honored, Moony,” James said with a grin.

Remus smiled and shook his head as he lit the end of the joint, raised it to his lips and took a puff. 

Sirius knew that he had seen Remus smoke dozens of times before, but somehow now, sitting in a cafe in Amsterdam, surrounded by muggles as he smoked grass openly, Sirius thought it was one of the most attractive things he had ever seen. 

Remus blew the smoke upwards, politely away from the others’ faces, and held the joint out to Sirius. “You next, Pads?” 

Sirius’s fingers brushed just barely against Remus’s as he took the joint and held it to his lips. 

“It’s a little harsh at first,” Remus said as Sirius took a small puff. “So you might—”

Sirius took the joint away from his lips and immediately started coughing as he felt a harsh tickle at the back of his throat.

James let out a cackle, and Peter joined him. “Now who’s the epitome of smooth?” James taunted, as he took the joint from Sirius’s fingers.

Sirius finished coughing and glared over at James. “Still Moony, you git.”

Remus only offered a small, somewhat consoling smile. “It gets easier the more you try, I promise,” he said to Sirius. 

“How much _do_ you smoke, then?” Peter asked, teetering between sounding accusatory and wonderous. 

Remus shrugged. “Not a lot to do in Wales in the winter except entertain yourself.”

James eagerly took a large puff on the joint, which evidently was a mistake, as he soon sputtered and coughed much more than Sirius had. 

Sirius smirked. “Too strong for you then, Prongs?”

James gave him the back of his fingers, still coughing as he handed the joint to Peter. 

Peter took the joint hesitantly, and after Remus’s careful instructions, took only a small puff. He made the mistake, however, of holding the smoke in his lungs far too long before exhaling, causing him to cough and sputter the most out of all of them. 

They laughed, and passed the joint a few more times around, the coughing lessening with each new attempt. Sirius felt the grass’s effects after a few minutes, and found himself laughing much easier than he had in some time—all the tension that he had carried with him throughout the trip seemed to slowly be oozing out of him. He didn’t feel the need to comment on the effects, though, like James had been enthusiastically trying to dissect for the past five minutes. 

“It’s— _listen_ ,” James said, leaning in over the table in the shop as the others tried to hold back their laughter at his intensity. “It’s like… my hand looks different, but I know it’s not. But it’s the _experience_ of looking at my hand that’s changed. You know?” 

“I guess?” Sirius said between laughter, looking at his own hand. He could admit it looked a bit different to him. 

“Hold on,” Remus cut in, suddenly looking very excited. “That actually makes sense, because the cannabinoid receptors cause changes in the levels of your neurotransmitters, and—”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “What the bloody _fuck_ does that mean, Moony?”

The others laughed as well, evidently too loudly, as the man from the counter walked over to them with a very tired look on his face. “If you’re not going to buy anything else, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

They all looked at each other for a moment before bursting out into laughter once more. But they got up from the table and left the shop moments later, (after Remus very apologetically purchased some tea to go). 

“Well, what now?” Peter asked, blinking more deliberately and frequently as they walked out onto the street. 

“Too early to do anything fun, isn’t it?” Sirius said, swaying back and forth on his heels pleasantly.

“I don’t know about that,” said Remus, smiling as he looked about the street. “We have the rest of the day to explore the city! I feel like I could walk the whole day, if I wanted to.” 

James laughed. “I don’t think I’ve seen you this excited since you found that stick on the Full last term.”

Sirius laughed as well. “Excuse me, do you mean the stick that _I_ found that Moony stole?”

They began walking down the street, their laughter echoing off the old buildings as they made their way in the vague direction of the city center. Remus turned and began walking backwards to address the rest of them face-to-face. “As leader of the pack I believe it was my _right_ to take the stick, Padfoot,” he said with a grin. 

“Your right too to drop that thing on my head, then?” Peter interjected, though he was smiling as well. “Nearly knocked me out! It was a big stick!”

Sirius nudged Peter’s shoulder with his own, in a manner far gentler than he usually did. “Oh, you were fine,” he said, smiling as the others continued laughing. 

They ambled around the streets, raucously laughing and jeering at each other as they recounted different memories of their machinations, or attempted to devise new ones for the coming year. Each time they would get distracted, though, having far too much fun pursuing nonsensical avenues of thought. They came upon a bridge over a canal, and determined they needed to see who could spit the farthest over the edge. The contest only lasted through Sirius and James, however, before it was revealed that Peter could hardly muster up enough spit to target much of anything into the water. And so they all spent several minutes arguing over which technique was best suited to a beginner spitter, before laughing too hard and eventually abandoning the idea. 

Sirius had always enjoyed the ease and freedom he had felt when with James, Remus, and Peter, but he felt especially light and open to it, then. As if he were more adept at accepting and churning out the foolishness they so delighted in during their moments of respite at school. And Sirius also found that the deep yearning he had been struggling to bear for Remus had shifted into a comfortable and simple euphoria—merely delighted enough to be in his presence and enjoy in his laughter as they walked around the city. 

They had come to rest eventually at a main road closer to the city’s center, Remus leaning against a lamppost while James and Peter took the nearby bench. Sirius sat on the bench’s arm, coming dangerously close to falling over onto James’s lap. 

“I’m in the mood to eat, I think,” Remus said, tilting his nose up to catch the smells of the river breeze wafting in from the canal. 

James snorted. “You’re always in the mood to eat,” he said. 

“I could eat something,” Peter chimed in happily, before looking down at his hands in his lap with serious thought. “You know, I think I know what you mean about the hands, Prongs. They do look different.”

The others laughed, and James stuck out his hands to join Peter in contemplation. “ _Thank_ you, Wormy. Glad one of us is a scholar of the mind.”

Peter laughed, sticking out his hands as well. “Man, I wonder if this is what the Imperius Curse feels like. It’s like I don’t have control over my fingers, or something.”

Remus laughed. “I think that’s in your head, Peter,” he said, looking at him with an amused smile. James, however, had stopped laughing, and had looked up at Sirius. 

Sirius could feel James’s eyes on him, but laughed as well. “Yeah, the Imperius Curse is much worse than that, mate.”

Remus had begun to laugh, but it quickly faded, and Sirius felt his eyes on him immediately. 

“Oh yeah?” Peter asked with a chuckle. “How would—” but he was cut off with an elbow to the side by James. 

“Yeah,” Sirius said, with a light laugh of his own. “It’s like—you know when you have dreams where you’re watching yourself outside of your body? That’s what it’s like, only you’re trapped inside it,” he said, eyes on the street as a bus sped past them. “It’s like you’re watching everything happen but you know it’s not _you_ , and… I don’t know, you try to claw your way back up to the surface and scream and fight but nothing gets through? Sometimes you see more of what you’re doing, sometimes it’s like bad memories of a dream. I think the second one’s better, personally.” He laughed. 

And it felt strange, then, that he could only hear himself laughing when for most of the afternoon, one of them dissolving into laughter had encouraged the others to do so as well. But when he looked over to James, and Peter, and Remus, none of them were even smiling. 

Sirius’s laughter died down, and he sighed, choosing to look out onto the street instead of meeting the pairs of eyes he could feel trained on him, forcing their way through the last bits of euphoria he was clinging to. 

“Sirius,” came Peter’s voice, quiet and tentative. “I didn’t—”

Sirius waved away Peter’s comment and shrugged, still not turning to look at any of them. “Ah, it’s fine. No worries there,” he said, and laughed again, though this time he could tell it sounded more forced. Of course he had found a way to ruin their fun. He always did. 

He felt James’s hand on his arm, but he stood from his perch on the arm of the bench, shaking it off. “I think I’m gonna... go for a walk. For a bit. Just, around.”

Remus pushed off from the lamppost, taking a step towards him. “Sirius… ” he said, and it sounded like a plea. 

Sirius couldn’t bring himself to look at any of them before he waved a haphazard goodbye. “No. I’m just… gonna go,” he said, and turned his back on James, Remus, and Peter, walking with no particular destination in mind besides ‘away.’ He heard James call after him, but just chose to pick up his pace, and duck behind an alleyway to shake any trail his friends may have been tempted to follow. 


	9. Things to Keep, Things to Share

**VIII**

**THINGS TO KEEP, THINGS TO SHARE**

**December, 1975**

Sirius had arrived at the Potter’s house, outside of Derby, at two o’clock in the morning on December 24th. His skin was aching from the cold, and his fingers barely closed around the pebble he knelt down to pick up from the garden before throwing it at the dark window of James’s bedroom on the upper floor. 

He waited for a moment, but with no immediate reaction he picked up another pebble and threw it again at the window, this time a little harder. (He’d have to apologize to Euphemia about scratching the window.) A moment later, he saw a light turn on in the room, and he felt a grin tug at his numbing face. James appeared at the window, squinting and blinking as his eyes adjusted to the lights, before doing a double-take at Sirius’s presence in his garden. 

Sirius waved. 

James opened his window, and poked his head outside, shivering at the biting winter air that greeted him. “What the hell are you doing down there?” he whisper-called down to him. “You’re not supposed to be here till New Year’s.”

“Surprise!” Sirius called back up, and grinned even wider. He was so relieved to just see James’s face, bewildered as it was. “I’m your Christmas present. Can you let me in? It’s fucking freezing out here!”

James looked at him for a moment more before shutting the window, and Sirius hurried over to the front door. He stomped his boots free of snow on the landing as he heard James’s footsteps quickly pattering down the stairs, and over to the door. 

The old, distinguished wooden door opened to reveal James, in a t-shirt and boxers, hair sticking up every which way, squinting at him warily from the entryway. 

“Don’t look so disappointed, Potter,” Sirius snorted, though he still smiled. “Thought you’d be happy to see my striking visage earlier than you expected.”

James shrugged, and opened the door wider for Sirius to come inside. “Course I am, s’just two in the fucking morning, mate.”

Sirius laughed and stepped inside the Potters’ home, comforted by the immediate warmth that met him. He braced himself on the wall with one hand while he untied his boots, setting them by the front door neatly so as not to too badly disturb the neat lineup of pairs already there. “Wouldn’t be nearly as much of a surprise if I showed up during the day, now would it?”

“Guess not,” James replied, still regarding him carefully. “Your hands are shaking like hell.”

Sirius froze for a moment before stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. “Not sure if you noticed, but it is winter out there,” he defended. 

“Right...” James said. “How the hell’d you get here, anyway?”

“Muggle Train,” Sirius said in a tone he hoped was breezy. “Well, trains. Had to hop around a bit.”

James blinked at him. “You _walked_ here from the muggle train station? That’s at least five miles away.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Hence the shivering. Look,” he said, and sighed, “I’m bloody freezing. I’m just going to make myself some tea and then I’ll meet you back up in your room, yeah?”

James folded his arms, looking at him with far more scrutiny than Sirius had the energy to defend himself against. Sirius was about to say something, anything, to deflect whatever questions James was going to level him with, but was surprised when he was met with only a shrug. “Fine,” James said. But added, “I’ll make myself some too.”

Sirius nodded, resigned to the fact that James was going to be more difficult with him than he had hoped. “Fine,” he said with a shrug. 

They walked to the kitchen in silence. Sirius had offered to just bring James up a mug after the kettle was ready, but James insisted on staying with him while the water boiled. Sirius was willing to accommodate him if it meant he would stop being so pushy. Which was, apparently, wishful thinking. 

“So, your parents know you’re here a week early?” James asked, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen.

Sirius stretched out his legs at his seat at the small round breakfast table, hands still stuffed in his pockets. He could feel his legs start to shake too, then. “Yep. They agreed right away. Couldn’t get rid of me fast enough,” he said with a smile. 

James looked at him for a moment. “They let you skip Christmas dinner? With the whole family?”

“Yeah, wasn’t going to be that big this year anyway,” Sirius said with a wave of his hand. “Dearest Bella and Rudolf are off in… I don’t know, Prague this year, or something.” The kettle started to whistle, and Sirius got up and walked over to the hob. He took his hands out of his pockets and tried to take the kettle over to where their mugs lay waiting with tea bags inside, but he was overwhelmed by the weight of it. His shaking hands, too weak to support the remaining adrenaline coursing through them, dropped the kettle onto the floor. It landed with a resounding clatter, reverberating off the walls of the old, quiet house and spilling boiling water onto the floor, and over Sirius’s feet. “ _Fuck…_ ”

“Shit, Sirius,” Sirius heard James say as he rushed over to him. “What’s—”

“I need to stay here,” Sirius blurted out, not turning to face James and clenching his hands against the kitchen counter to steady himself. He could hardly feel the boiling water against his skin. “Please. Please let me stay.” He could hear his voice quiver, and he hated it. Hated how weak and tired and pathetic he sounded as he begged. 

“Sirius,” James said, and placed a hand on Sirius’s shoulder. 

“I’ll do whatever work you need me to around the house,” Sirius continued, the words flooding out of him. “I’ll get a muggle job during the summer to help pay for food, I’ll—”

“Sirius, come on,” James said, turning Sirius by the shoulder to face him. James’s tired eyes were warm, the hand on his shoulder a firm, grounding presence. “We’re brothers. You’re staying. Ok?” He pulled Sirius into an embrace, and Sirius let out a sigh of exhausted relief as he returned it. 

“...I can’t go back,” Sirius said, much quieter than before as he clung to James. “I can’t…”

“You’re not,” James replied, and Sirius felt like he’d need to hear it a hundred more times to even think he was lucky enough for that to be true. “I promise.”

Sirius’s eyes stung, and he clung to James tighter, the shaking taking hold of his whole body. 

“Merlin,” Sirius heard James sigh, as he too tightened his hold. “What did they do to you, Sirius?”

~~~

**Summer, 1976**

Sirius sat on his bed in their room in De Tovenaarsherberg with his head in his hands. Whatever was left of his high was rapidly waning, the creeping shame of his abrupt exit from his friends slowly taking hold instead. 

He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he left, but he figured it wouldn’t be long before they all came back to the room. The “walk” he had ended up talking was more of a frantic, zig-zagged path back to the inn, where he had been sitting and stewing in his thoughts ever since. 

There was a knock on the door. Sirius didn’t bother responding to it, knowing whoever was on the other side of the door was bound to let themselves in anyway. 

He was proven correct when James opened the door a crack, scanning the room for Sirius. (He didn’t look up to see if it was James, but he felt that it must be—taking an audibly deep breath as he let himself in, and treading quietly towards Sirius over on the bed. No one else would have had the confidence to approach Sirius when he was like this.)

James gave him a wide breadth of space, stopping to stand a few feet away from him at the center of the room (which Sirius found odd. James never usually shied away from getting in his personal space.)

Sirius sighed into his hands, and finally pulled his face up to look at James. “Look, you guys can—” 

He stopped. Remus was standing in the center of the room, hands in his pockets, shifting uneasily on his feet, looking straight at him with a concerned wrinkle between his thoughtful grey eyes. 

Sirius blinked. “Remus. Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I… thought you were James.”

Remus gave an apologetic looking smile. “No. Sorry,” he said, glancing back at the door. “Do um… do you want me to get him?”

“No,” Sirius said, shaking his head more emphatically this time. “No. Didn’t mean… sorry.” He rested his head in his hand. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” Remus said. 

There was silence between them for what seemed like a full minute, only the muffled sounds of street traffic outside and the occasional creaking of the old wooden roof as another resident walked across the floor above them. Sirius couldn’t quite fathom why Remus was the one in the room with him currently. Surely, he didn’t want to have to be the one to deal with the tempest of anxieties and memories brewing in Sirius’s head. 

Eventually, Remus spoke again. “I’m not going to ask if you’re ok,” he said quietly. “Because I know you’re not.”

Sirius huffed. “Thanks.”

“I just mean,” Remus sighed, and ran a hand through his light, tousled hair. “Well I… um… Fenrir Greyback attacked me to get back at my father.”

Sirius wasn’t sure how he was supposed to catch the absolute boulder of a statement Remus had just thrown at him, but he didn’t. “ _What_?” 

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes. “Shit. Sorry. I just… all I meant was,” Remus took a deep breath and looked back at Sirius nervously. “If I tell you mine… will you tell me yours?” 

Sirius shook his head. “You don’t have to—”

“But I _want_ to,” Remus insisted. “Look, everyone’s got their… things. The… things, they have to keep with them. I think it’s fair to say that we… well, you and I have a few more ‘things’ to deal with than Peter and James.” He sighed, and hesitantly took a step closer to Sirius. “And I know they’re not the same. I do. But I just wanted to… I want you to know that you can tell me, Sirius.”

Sirius studied Remus, how he seemed to be nervously clenching and unclenching his hand, but how resolutely he looked back at him. He could sense that his words were true, that he wanted to speak and listen. The only thing he was unsure about was how Sirius would take it. 

Sirius, after a long moment, nodded. “Ok,” he said.

Remus nodded as well, some of the tension visibly leaving his body as the tense line of his shoulders relaxed and his hand stilled. “Ok.” He went and sat next to Sirius on the bottom bunk, nearly a person’s width away but not quite. 

Neither of them faced each other. Then Remus spoke. “Do you want me to go first?”

Sirius nodded, but then, realizing Remus still wasn’t looking at him, murmured “...Sure.” 

Remus took a deep breath. “Alright.” And there was a silence before he began. “So, Lyall was working in the Control of Magical Creatures department when Greyback was brought in, under suspicion of killing two muggle children. He wasn’t on the registry—no one is—and so they were going to let him go. But Lyall...” Remus paused again. “Lyall fought them on it. Said he knew the signs of a werewolf well enough, and that ‘monsters like them deserved to die.’ Or something of the like. He’d written as much in his papers on ‘the Dark Creatures of Britain’.” 

Sirius felt his stomach drop, and he looked over to Remus. He didn’t look back at Sirius, only down at his knees, and so Sirius did him the courtesy of looking back down at the floor. 

“They still ignored him, though,” Remus continued. “Majority overruled. And so Greyback was let go. And he decided, I suppose, that he wanted to give Lyall a little gift on the next full moon.” Remus’s voice grew tighter with anger, but he managed to keep his words measured. “So he found out about me. And the rest, well, I told you last night.”

Sirius didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell him that he was sorry, to reach out and take hold of his hand like he did the night before, but he felt that that wasn’t what Remus needed, then. That Remus needed to let himself be angry, just for a bit longer. And so he asked, “How did you find out?”

“I was in the study, at home,” Remus replied. “It was the night of the full, just before we left. Lyall uses it mostly, but... I read in there sometimes. The lighting is nice when it’s not too cloudy.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I… I was looking through the shelves, and I found one of his books on dark creatures. So I looked through it. It was old, dog-eared and tattered and everything, but I saw Lyall had written a chapter. So I looked through it, out of curiosity. And, well… the man certainly knows werewolves. How to identify them, make them sick, kill them. He was very thorough.”

Remus’s jaw looked tight, as if physically biting back the anger and hurt he had at the memory. But he pressed on. “I went and confronted him about it. Why he even still had the book at all, why he had never bothered to tell me about it. And I could tell when I looked at him… he’d known this would happen since the night I was attacked. That he’d been dreading telling me the truth about everything. It was only because I found that horrible book he kept that he bothered telling me the truth about Greyback’s attack. That it had really been his fault, all this time.” 

Sirius looked over at Remus again, he couldn’t bear not to. Remus still didn’t return his gaze, instead taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh. Remus’s posture slumped significantly, as if he had just shrugged off a great weigh that had been pressing down on his back. 

“Naturally, I was upset after everything I heard,” Remus continued, quietly. “But the sun was about to set, and… I had to go down to the cellar. I don’t remember much after that, but…” he rubbed at the side of his neck. “Apparently, the Wolf was angrier than usual. It broke through the regular restraints, nearly broke down the door. So Lyall panicked, and got creative with the charms.” He held out his left arm, rolled up his sleeve to reveal the spot where the fiery marks of the rope-shaped burn once were, and where the claw and teeth marks remained. “ _Funem ignis._ ‘Rope of fire.’ Apparently that’s what they use on the really nasty dark creatures at the CMC.” He rolled his sleeve back down. “I was… in bad shape in the morning. And I could tell that Lyall felt horrible. But… whether that was for me or for him, for his ‘punishment’ he had to deal with so many years later, I’m still not sure.”

Remus finally turned back to Sirius, though his eyes didn’t stay on his. “So. There you have it. That’s why I was such a mess at the train station. That’s the ‘thing’ that I have to keep with me.” 

Sirius nodded. He felt it was all he could do. It still felt too presumptuous to reach out to Remus, to try and comfort him. Because it wasn’t something said in the hopes of comfort: it was an offering. The most painful thing he could offer up to Sirius to get him to trust him with what was going on inside his head. “Thank you,” Sirius said after a moment. “For telling me everything.”

Remus nodded back, this time meeting his eyes. “I just… wanted you to know you can tell me things. Anything. I can handle it, and I want to.” He shook his head, looking something close to embarrassed. “If you still don’t want to right now, I understand. I can get James, he’s outside the inn with Pete, but I thought I could—”

“No,” Sirius said. “I want to tell you.” He wasn’t sure he had decided to do so until just then, but seeing Remus open himself up to him, bear everything for him… it felt safer, now. 

“Only if you’re sure,” Remus replied, but nodded. 

Sirius took a deep breath, but found he wasn’t nearly as tense as he was before Remus came into the room. The rapidity of his thoughts had slowed, and he was free to sift through them now. He hadn’t told anyone but James what had happened before, and when he had it certainly hadn’t been entirely coherent. But he was willing to try to piece it together, to tell Remus.

“I um… me and my parents, we were having another fight.” Sirius nearly rolled his eyes at the statement. Obviously they were fighting, that was all they ever did. “I didn’t think it would be that bad. That they’d just… you know. Do what they’d always done.” 

Remus knew this much already. A slap, a caning, a laceration charm. He had made the mistake of mentioning these all too causally to James, Remus, and Peter their first year at school, before he came to think of it as anything unusual. He didn’t make the mistake again. 

“And I could handle that,” Sirius said. “I always had. But then they started talking about all this… Dark Lord horseshit, and about how I couldn’t be the heir to the House of Black if I didn’t start acting like it soon.” He swallowed, his mouth feeling suddenly dry. “I um… I must have said something like ‘you can’t make me.’” 

Sirius looked down at his shoes, trying earnestly, for the first time, to purposefully reconstruct everything that had happened that night. “I don’t even remember what started the fight. I think it was something I said about the relatives we had visiting soon, for the holidays. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t said before, but… I think my parents were just getting tired with me. They didn’t want to waste energy fighting me when they could just shut me up, if it would teach me a lesson.” 

Sirius could feel Remus looking at him, then. “Was that the night you went to James’s?” Remus asked quietly. 

“No,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “That was… I think it was five nights before?” He took a moment, trying to recall any more specifics. “Yeah. Five nights. That’s the thing about the Imperius Curse. If it’s on you long enough, it gets everything scrambled.”

“They kept it on you for four days?” Remus asked. And Sirius was grateful it didn’t sound incredulous, or repulsed. It was just for clarification.

Sirius nodded. “Yeah.” 

There was a silence that hung between them. And Remus didn’t prod him further. He just sat beside him, as he began to remember everything. 

“It’s never put on the same level as the other two Unforgivables,” Sirius continued eventually. “People think it’s only for making someone steal something, or spill some secret. But if the person casting it _really_ knows how to use it…” He felt his throat tighten. “Remus… it’s horrible.” His voice had gotten so quiet he barely heard himself. “It was like I was a prisoner in my own body. I had to fight to see what I was doing and saying… and sometimes I’d get too tired to keep it up and just let go. And sometimes I’d fight so hard it hurt, and I’d panic... ” Sirius took a deep breath, trying to give himself enough air to tell Remus everything. “I think they could tell, when I got too close to breaking through. I must have shown signs of it on the outside. And so they’d make the hold tighter, beat my mind back down so it couldn’t fight back.

“It wasn’t what they made me do,” Sirius continued. “They just made me a shell of a person… obedient enough to not embarrass them when company came over. But they showed me that they could make me do whatever they wanted. That it would be easy, even. And they’d do it again. Keep doing it, if they had to.”

Remus was silent. Sirius didn’t feel him move on the bed, or react at all to what he had told him. He stayed still as a guard, waiting for Sirius. 

“I didn’t eat,” Sirius said. “I mean, they didn’t let me. The whole time. I think I tried to, but they stopped me, before I could. I was so tired when I got to James’s, and it took me forever to realize that was probably why. I think…” he stopped, hit with another memory that he had only just recovered. “I think Reg tried to sneak me something, once. After I was sent to my room for the night. I don’t think I got to it, though.”

Regulus had been only a vague awareness throughout those four days. A concerned look every so often in his direction over the table or across the room, but not anything more. For all they fought, and for all Sirius thought his brother an arrogant, bigoted fool, and Regulus thought Sirius just as arrogant and irresponsibly loud-mouthed, they had never tried to get the other in trouble. Even as the years wore on, and their childhood friendship had nearly worn away completely, there had been an understanding. Not one of action, but of beneficial inaction. 

“...How did you get away?” Remus asked eventually, after it must have seemed like Sirius had gotten lost in his thoughts.

Sirius cleared his throat again, bringing himself back to the present. “During the night,” Sirius started, “I noticed… it didn’t feel as strong as it did during the day. I felt like I was almost back in my body. It must have been because neither of them were awake to strengthen the curse, but the first night I just stayed in bed.” He felt his stomach drop in shame. “... I was too afraid to try anything. I didn’t feel like I could… pull anything off, I guess.”

Sirius remembered feeling the curse slip just enough the first night for him to be properly and completely terrified. He was still physically bound to his room, but could feel his emotions come clawing back up to the surface of his mind, and plunging him into panic. He felt pathetic as he laid on his bed, unable to move save for allowing himself to sob and shake. 

“But I um,” Sirius continued, forcing himself not to dwell on his most pitiful moment, “I remembered, last year, I think? We were reading about the Unforgivables, and it said that the Imperius curse could be resisted. Broken, even, if you tried hard enough.” He shook his head. “I knew I wasn’t going to be strong enough to try it during the day, but at night, I thought I had a chance.”

“You broke the curse yourself?” Remus asked, and for the first time during the conversation he sounded a little surprised. 

Sirius shrugged. “I think I must have. I don’t have any other explanation for how I was able to get away. I practiced, each night,” he explained, “trying to see how much I could fight against it. It wasn’t until the fifth night I could feel anything working. I could feel my fingers, and hands, and legs enough to push them, just a little, on my own. I still didn’t feel fully free of it, but I was free enough to try and escape.”

He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Remus’s brow furrow as he tried to wrap his head around it. But his words were still measured, and even. “How did you get out of your house without anyone noticing?”

“Through Reg’s window,” Sirius said. “I couldn’t leave through mine because… ” He stopped. He wasn’t sure if he had told any of his friends about the enchantments his mother had put on his window after second year to keep him from running away, after he had attempted to that summer. “Well, they’d suspect Reg less than me,” Sirius settled on. “Scared the shit out of him, but enough for him to keep his mouth shut as I threw myself into the bushes.”

That, Sirius remembered, hurt like hell. He was several floors up, and the hedges, while tall enough to catch him, weren’t soft enough to make the landing at all pleasurable. And he knew, in the back of his mind, that there was a chance he would injure himself so badly he’d be stuck there. He could also not even make it through the fall. But he knew it would be better to have tried and failed than to have given up and been stuck in that house a minute longer. 

Euphemia Potter said he had bruised his ribs, and that he was lucky he hadn’t broken his legs. Sirius didn’t say that he was lucky a lot of things didn’t happen, but he let her heal him regardless. The fact that she didn’t press him with questions after she offered to heal him was a blessing he didn’t want to mar with unnecessary information. 

“I knew where the underground was from the house,” Sirius said, “so I walked there, hopped the turnstile, and got on a train. Once I got out of London I had to hide in the bathrooms on the train to Derby to dodge the conductors, and… well…” he paused, trying to fit together all the moving parts of the incomplete memory. “... I started to feel more like myself again. I don’t know for sure when it happened—I didn’t feel anything get ripped away from me, or anything. It was more like… a bad dream. That I wasn’t even sure I remembered fully. Just something in the back of my head that I knew if I poked at it too long it’d all come tumbling back, and I’d be living it all over again.”

And it had come tumbling back, eventually. Completely unbidden, and unrelenting when they resurfaced. That was what James had called his ‘Moments.’ Moments where he remembered everything so clearly he froze out of fear, but instead of the curse itself that had a hold on him, it was the mere ghost of it. A phantom reminder of everything he had felt and broken through. At first, he thought the curse had re-taken him, that somehow it found a way to re-attach itself to him. And even though he knew that was impossible, that that wasn’t how the curse, or even magic, worked at all, he’d feel it as if it had taken him again.

Sirius still felt a deep guilt that he had ruined James’s winter holidays with everything he put him through. He had a particularly bad moment on Christmas morning, though thankfully it was in the privacy of the guest bedroom, away from Euphemia and Fleamont. James had no idea what was going on, but sat with him until the panic subsided, and until Sirius was cognizant enough to apologize for being such

a nuisance. James had called him a fucking idiot and then hugged him. 

“That… happened, sometimes. But it hasn’t for a while, now.” Sirius said. He knew Remus knew exactly what instances he was referring to. He had had several such moments in their dormitory right after they had gotten back to school. “I still try not to think about it too much, though. Just in case.” He looked over to Remus, finally able to return his gaze after spewing out every horrible detail of that week to him. Sirius had anticipated some sort of pity to be written on his face, but Remus’s features were still. His eyes had that intense glean to them Sirius knew only came when he was focusing intently on something, and he exuded an acute and calculated calm. There was no pity, only understanding.

“Thank you, Sirius,” Remus said, and reached out and put a hand on Sirius’s shoulder. 

Sirius felt such relief at the touch of Remus’s hand, such a selfish urge to feel that relief everywhere, that he pulled Remus closer to him on the bed and into an embrace. 

He heard Remus give a surprised, sharp intake of breath, before he was reciprocating the hug. Sirius clung to him tighter than he ever had before, tighter maybe than he had ever hugged anyone. And he knew, in the back of his mind, that Remus had no idea why _his_ words of commiseration, or his empathetic ear meant that much more to Sirius in particular. He might never know. But he let himself ignore the undercurrents of his other feelings in favor of savoring Remus’s presence, and the absolute relief it brought. 

“... I’m glad it was you,” Sirius said quietly into Remus’s shoulder. “I’m glad it was you I got to talk to.”

He felt Remus’s hold tighten on him slightly. “Me too,” he replied.

Sirius sighed and reluctantly pulled away from the embrace, to give Remus a smile he hoped conveyed all the gratitude he felt overflowing inside of him. 

Remus smiled back, and it was just as warm. 

They sat together in silence for a moment, comfortable in each other’s shared company. Sirius felt so much lighter than when he had entered the inn earlier, freer than he had in a long time. 

Remus’s eyes drifted downwards from his own, seeming to focus on a spot on Sirius’s face below his nose, before clearing his throat. “Um…” he began, “Is it just me and James who know about what happened, now?”

Sirius nodded, and wiped at his lip briefly with his thumb, thinking Remus must have noticed something on it. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Monty and Mia know something happened, but they didn’t ask what. I think they know I don’t want to talk about it.”

Remus nodded, still not quite meeting Sirius’s eyes. 

Sirius sighed. “Sorry I… you know,” he shrugged. “Fucked up the whole day”

“You didn’t,” Remus replied, shaking his head. “Really. No one’s upset with you for any of this. There’s still plenty of daylight left to be idiots, and I’m sure Prongs will still be happy to make use of it.” He smiled. “You didn’t ruin anything. I promise.”

Sirius did his best to return the smile, but there was still a gnawing feeling in his stomach. He looked back down at his shoes, dread and guilt pooling to the front of his mind.

“You don’t have to go back yet, either,” Remus said, quieter. 

Sirius looked back at him.

“If you’re not ready, I mean,” Remus continued. “I don’t think anyone would blame you for taking a bit more time for yourself. If you need it.”

Sirius thought for a moment, but then shook his head. “If I stay here any longer, I’ll just end up thinking about it too much. But it’s still… I don’t know,” he said with another sigh. “Humiliating? Going back to everyone, I mean. After freaking out over nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” Remus said, sounding a little stern. “If I don’t get to berate myself over the things that still set me off, then neither do you.” The look in his eyes was piercing, but somehow still conveyed enough warmth behind it that Sirius knew the scolding came from a place of care. “You don’t get to be a hypocrite.”

Sirius wanted to protest, to say something about how it was different—it made sense for Remus to be upset about what had happened to him as a child, because the consequences had changed his entire life. Sirius had one bad week at his parent’s home, but was able to get away. Somehow, it didn’t feel the same at all. He didn’t have the right to compare his feelings to Remus’s. But the moment he opened his mouth to voice all of this, Remus shot him down with another stern look. 

“You don’t,” Remus repeated. And it was final.

Sirius merely nodded, though he still wasn’t entirely convinced.

Remus sighed. “As far as being embarrassed goes,” he said, looking away, picking absently at the stray fuzz that had attached itself to his corduroys, “I get it. I feel humiliated each time I have to wake up in the shack, all bruised and naked with you all watching me. I feel weak and helpless and… horrible, honestly. For letting you all see me at my worst.”

Sirius frowned. “...You’ve never told us that before,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely surprised. Sirius knew the amount of shame that Remus carried with him about his condition was fathomless in its depths, an all-consuming guilt that weighed down on him constantly. 

Remus shrugged. “Not really easy to say.” But then he smiled, ever so slightly, and it was enough to brighten the pallor of shame that had fallen over him. “It’s still far less humiliating than waking up alone, though.”

Sirius felt himself smiling in return, and when Remus’s eyes met his again, he nodded. “Thanks.”

Remus’s smile widened, and placed his hand on Sirius’s shoulder. “Of course,” he said. And Sirius revelled in the fact that he let his hand rest there for a long time. “Do you think you want to get back now?”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Better get it over with.”

“Ok,” Remus said, and briefly squeezed Sirius’s shoulder before getting up from the bed. 

Sirius stood as well, and hoped the disappointment at Remus’s warm touch leaving him wasn’t evident on his face. “Prongs and Wormy outside?”

Remus nodded. “They should be. Unless they went next door to get food already,” he said, holding the door open for Sirius. 

Despite Remus’s words of encouragement, and Sirius’s promise not to, he still felt the shame sticking tightly in his stomach as he stepped out of the inn, dreading facing his friends after his abrupt exit. 

He hardly had enough time to feel sorry for himself, however, as Peter abruptly came into his view, dashing up to him once he was on the pavement. “Sirius!” he exclaimed, then winced at apparently having spoken too loudly. “I’m… I’m really sorry, mate.”

Sirius frowned, and looked over Peter’s shoulder to where James was, searching for any indication he knew what had prompted Peter’s outburst. James only stuffed his hands in his pockets, giving Peter and Sirius a wide breadth of space on the pavement. “Sorry… for what?” Sirius asked.

“For… you know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and turning pink in the face. “Making that joke. About the… I didn’t know.”

Sirius blinked in surprise, only just remembering that it had been Peter to bring the curse up in the first place. “Oh.” He shook his head, and gave Peter a hearty pat on the arm. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Really. Not your fault.”

Peter looked a mixture of incredibly grateful and bewildered. “... Real—? Um… thanks,” he said, after what seemed like some internal deliberation. 

James snorted. “Moony really set you straight in there, didn’t he?” He smiled at Sirius, stepping close enough then that Sirius could see how worried he still looked.

Sirius laughed. “Shut up,” he said, and gave James a smile he hoped conveyed how much better he was already.

It seemed to be enough, and James’s smile widened. “Come on then,” he said, giving Sirius a clap on the back, mercifully not pressing him to talk any further on the subject. “There’s a restaurant with some of those fancy little meatballs on sticks over the bridge, and we _will_ try them. What are they called again, Moony?” He called the last part over Sirius’s shoulder to Remus. 

“Bitterballen,” Remus said, walking over to the rest of them with a smile. “Though I’m really not sure you can call them ‘fancy’.”

“They’re _here_ , aren’t they?” James challenged. “That makes them fancy already.”

Remus laughed. “Not sure that’s sound logic, there.”

“Nonsense,” James said, steering Sirius down the pavement with a hand on his back, bidding the others to follow. “Honestly, I thought you read the guidebook, Moony.”

And that seemed to be enough. They walked towards the restaurant, Sirius flanked by James and Remus, the afternoon’s events seemingly forgotten, or at least pushed to the side for the time being. The air between them was lighter. There was still the needling feeling of shame, and guilt, prickling at the pit of his stomach, but it was hard to feel it too acutely, anymore. 

~~~

The rest of the day went blessedly smooth. James burned his mouth on his first overeager bite of Bitterbalen, but was steadfast in his claim that he could still taste the subsequent bites and that it had been worth it. They wandered the city more after that, criss-crossing over canals and taking in the glint of streetlights over the calm waters, and Sirius found it within himself to laugh and enjoy the moments of nonsense that usually gave him joy. No one treated him with any sort of cautious distance, and for that he was eternally relieved. (Though it seemed Peter had been less vocal than usual, only contributing to conversations instead of instigating them. He couldn’t help but think that was an attempt to not push his luck with Sirius’s temper, and for this, he was equally relieved. Not that he felt he was any more prone to snapping at Peter than usual, but it certainly made for a more pleasant evening.)

After grabbing a pint, they decided to head back to the inn, feet sore with a long day of walking; Sirius wouldn’t be surprised if they had traveled over ten miles, at least. With no definitive plans for the next day, they decided to plan on sleeping in. 

And so Sirius waited, until he was James and Peter’s breathing evened out, and the rustling in their beds quieted, to poke his head out from the side of his bed and whisper up to the top bunk. “...Moony?”

“Yeah,” came Remus’s voice in return, sounding resigned and just a little guilty. “Still awake.”

Sirius slid out of bed as quietly as he could, careful to not let the frame creak too much at the shift in weight, and stood to peer over the ledge of Remus’s bunk above him. 

Remus was sitting up, knees tucked up towards his chin, his copy of _Ulysses_ untouched by the foot of the bed. He gave Sirius something close to a smile when their eyes met. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Sirius replied, quietly. Remus looked so anxious, in the ways he usually only got in the hours leading up to the full: curled in on himself, paler than usual, and stiff in a way that seemed to purposefully be blocking out physical jitteriness. And so, in a moment of boldness Sirius hadn’t in the least been expecting, he nodded over to Remus’s bed. “Can I come up?” 

Remus looked just as surprised as Sirius had felt after uttering the words. He seemed to freeze even more so than he already was, before offering a small shrug. “...If you want to,” he said, before adding quickly, “and if you can do it quietly.”

Sirius smiled, encouraged by Remus’s agreement, and carefully climbed the thin slats of wood that led to the top bunk. Having spent nearly his whole life sneaking around an old house that moaned and creaked with the slightest disruption, with ancient furniture to match, Sirius prided himself on his ability to sleuth when the occasion called for it. 

Sirius gave Remus a smug smile as he sat down on the bed beside him, opening his hands in a ‘you may applaud’ gesture.

Remus rolled his eyes, but smiled. “Yes, very impressive,” he said, managing to convey his sarcasm still in a whisper. 

Sirius laughed a little through his nose, and settled cross-legged at the foot of the bed. Remus’s toes were nearly touching his knee, but not quite. “...How are you feeling?”

Remus sighed. “I thought I’d be a bit better, after last night,” he said, looking down at his knees. “Wishful thinking I guess.”

Sirius could only nod in acknowledgment. Now that he knew the entirety of the truth behind Remus’s fear, and what had happened the night of the attack, he hurt even more for him. 

“I know we said we don’t get to say these things are stupid anymore,” Remus said, a small smile tugging at his lips, “but I sure feel like an idiot.” 

Sirius smiled as well. “I get it,” he said, and leaned back on his hands. “Not in the mood for Joyce tonight?” 

Remus sighed. “I wish I was. Just feel... a bit too scrambled tonight, for some reason.”

A sinking feeling made its home in Sirius’s chest, as he came to the realization that his talk with Remus today couldn’t have helped all of the already firmly planted anxiety that he had felt every night they’d been at the inn.

He felt too ashamed to apologize, and certainly didn’t want Remus to feel the need to console him for any guilt he may have been exuding. So instead, he turned on the bed to face Remus directly. “Bet I can talk you to sleep,” he said, and smiled again. “I think I’ve got far more to say than Bloom fucking around Dublin, anyway.”

Remus let out a snort and smiled back. “That’s a pretty tall order to fill. Have you tried lifting this thing?” he said, picking up the book and weighing it in his hand. But the brightness of his eyes belied a cheerfulness at Sirius’s suggestion. 

Sirius laughed. “Then why do you sleep with it in your bed? Must be like sleeping with a brick.” 

Remus joined in Sirius’s laughter, both of them trying their best to stifle their volume in the company of their sleeping friends. 

“Really, though,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “We can just talk. I don’t mind.”

Remus let out a sigh, his smile now colored with an apprehension that made it look more like a grimace. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You really don’t have to stay up. I know it’s asking a lot of you.”

“Moony, I don’t _do_ anything I don’t want to,” Sirius said with a self-confident smirk that he hoped re-assured Remus. “That’s why I never do the Potions homework.” That made Remus snort, and Sirius continued. “I mean it,” he said more earnestly. “I don’t care if I stay up all night. I want to.”

Remus’s smile looked more genuine then, his eyes shining with palpable gratitude. “Thank you, Sirius.”

Sirius nodded, and stretched his legs out so they were parallel to Remus’s. “So,” he said, leaning back on his hands again, “what classes are you taking next term?”

Remus laughed. “What _classes_ am I taking?”

Sirius shrugged. “If talking about Ancient Runes doesn’t put you to sleep, it’ll definitely put _me_ to sleep.”

Remus kicked him, but snorted. “So rude. It’s really very interesting if you can get the declensions and conjugations down quickly.”

“Oh, is that all?”

Remus kicked him again. 

Sirius laughed. “You have to know how ridiculous you sound when you say that,” he teased. 

“I do,” Remus smiled and admitted with a sigh. “At least I’m self-aware.” 

“Thin ice, Moony,” Sirius said with a grin. “Ok, so Ancient Runes and what else.”

Remus chuckled. “I swear that’s the worst one. Astronomy, Transfiguration, Charms, Defense, History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, and Alchemy.” The tension that Sirius had noticed earlier in the evening seemed to be slowly easing out of Remus, his shoulders more relaxed as he rested his back against the wall.

Sirius smiled. “Alchemy? Who the hell else is in that with you?” He wasn’t surprised that Remus had been accepted to the difficult elective. He just had no idea who else would have been crazy enough to take on so much extra work. 

“Far as I know it’s just me, Lily, and Dorcas,” Remus said, his face washing with red. 

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Of course. Brain brigade,” he drawled, which earned him another kick from Remus, though this time he pulled his leg away in time. “Does that mean poor Slughorn is going to miss seeing your eager face this term?”

Remus made a sound akin to retching. “I’m never making another potion as long as I live,” he groaned and shook his head. “What can be solved with a potion that can’t be solved with a charm or a spell? Honestly.”

Sirius laughed. “Suppose you’re right,” he said, but knew Remus had other motives for dropping the course. Slughorn never resisted the opportunity to bring up a student’s blood status, as if it had anything to do with how well the student completed assignments. Remus and Lily always were commended for excelling “in spite of” their inferior blood in class. How remarkable they were, “considering.” Sirius didn’t know how many professors knew about Remus’s condition, but from the way Slughorn always regarded Remus rather warily, he was able to guess that he had been informed, as Head of House. 

Remus shook his head. “Anyway. How about you? What are you taking?”

“Not nearly as many as you are,” Sirius replied with a smile. “Transfiguration, of course. Then Charms, Defense, Astronomy, Muggle Studies, Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, and Potions.”

Remus frowned, and tilted his head inquisitively. “I thought you and Prongs were going to drop Care of Magical Creatures?”

“Eh,” Sirius said with a shrug. “He did, but... I think I want to stay with it.” James had grown bored with the elective after two years, stating that nothing in Care of Magical Creatures was as exciting as transforming into an animal every month and running through the forest with a Werewolf. But Sirius still found the class remarkably enjoyable, not in the least because it was one of Remus’s favorite classes—the way he lit up around every curious little creature they were tasked with handling was infectious. And the fact that it was a practical learning course meant that Remus could never be fully prepared for what hand they’d be dealt by the beasts they encountered, which put Sirius and Remus on more firmly equal footing academically in the class. It was always thrilling, tackling how to approach a Bicorn or a Cockatrice without getting maimed with Remus at his side. 

Remus raised an eyebrow. “But you two have had the same schedules since first year.”

Sirius huffed. “I do things without him sometimes.”

Remus gave Sirius a knowing look.

“Shut up, I do!” Sirius retorted, dangerously close to breaking the whisper to normal volume threshold. 

Remus held back a laugh, waving away Sirius’s outburst. “Shh, ok, ok, you do, fine” he said, though it was clearly only to placate Sirius. “It’ll be nice to have someone still in the class, at least.”

Sirius smiled. “I think it’s a brilliant class,” he said. “Prongs and Wormy are missing out.”

“Peter couldn’t drop the course fast enough,” Remus laughed. “He was so angry with us for making him take it.”

“I reckon he still is,” Sirius said with a smile. “After that Flobworm suctioned itself to his face I don’t blame him. Anyway, I’m sure you don’t need knowledge of magical creatures to be a stuffy member of the Wizengamot.”

Remus grimaced. “He’s really still keen on that, isn’t he?”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Can you imagine Wormy holding anyone to justice? He’d piss himself if he had to so much as _look_ at a dark wizard.” 

Remus gave him a disapproving look. “Be nice. He’s only on about it still because it’s what his father expects from him.”

Peter’s father, having made it to the position of Senior Representative in the Wizengamot at the youngest age possible, always strongly encouraged his son to follow in his footsteps. It had become almost comical though, how continually unsuited Peter had proven himself of perfecting the intricacies of the justice system, having no strong sense of personal justice beyond what benefited him. It never manifested itself in cruelty, but often in petulance, as Peter’s natural knack was for self-preservation above all else. James and Remus found it amusing, for the most part—how often Peter would vehemently refuse to do some prank or other, not because he disagreed with it morally, but because he couldn’t find a way to weasel out of the subsequent punishment for it. Sirius found it cowardly, more than anything.

“Well,” Sirius said, shaking his head, “I know he mentioned it in his career meeting. I’d pay to see what McGonagall’s face was when he told her.”

Remus hummed in acknowledgment, pulling up a pillow to rest between his back and the wall. 

“What, um…” Sirius paused, guilt blooming in his chest. He hadn’t gotten the opportunity to ask Remus about his career meeting last term, seeing as they weren’t on speaking terms at that point. “What did you end up saying? In your meeting?”

“I… don’t remember,” Remus mumbled with a shrug. “Something stupid, probably.” He didn’t look at Sirius, eyes focused instead on the wood grain of the bed frame. 

Sirius frowned. “You don’t remember?” he asked. “Come on, it was only a month ago.”

“I just don’t,” Remus said with another shrug, folding his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t that important, anyway.”

“Remus, it was the career meeting, what do you mean—”

Remus let out a groan. “I didn’t go, ok? I skipped it. I never went.” His eyes met Sirius’s only briefly before going back to the bed frame at his side. “It was pointless.”

Sirius balked at him. “... What the hell are you talking about! You’re the best student out of all of us, you could get any job you wanted.”

“Sirius,” Remus said, looking at him with a very tired expression. “You _know_ I couldn’t.” 

The reality of the statement hit Sirius squarely in the gut. “... Oh.”

A silence fell between them, heavy with Remus’s unsaid reality. Remus curled his legs closer to his chest and let out a sigh. “... I just want to enjoy the next two years as much as I can, you know? I don’t know what’ll come after that. I don’t want to think about it.” He wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his cheek against his knees. “McGonagall didn’t even get upset with me for skipping. Just said we needed to ‘talk more later,’ which I think was her way of acknowledging she had no idea how to help me either.”

Sirius nodded, feeling at a loss to do much of anything else. 

Remus wasn’t looking at him, eyes downcast as he seemed to go over his own words. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s just—”

“You’d be a great teacher,” Sirius blurted out. 

Remus looked up at him, confused. “What?”

“I mean it,” Sirius said, putting a hand on Remus’s knee to help convey the earnestness of his words. “You would. You could teach anything—you already tutor practically all of Gryffindor tower, and you’re so patient with everyone.”

Remus’s cheeks seemed to color a bit at the praise, but he shook his head. “That’s… I mean, that’s not all that matters, though. Who in their right mind would hire me?”

“Dumnledore was ‘crazy’ enough to let you go to school there for five years already, wasn’t he?” Sirius countered. “I’m sure he’d be crazy enough to hire you.” He became hyper-aware of the hand he still had on Remus’s knee, the warmth of Remus’s body seeping into his palm, and once again he had no idea to remove himself from the situation.

Remus made no move to get out of his grasp, however. “That’s different,” he said, though this protest sounded weaker, his eyes brightening with something that seemed like hope. “No one wants a Werewolf teaching their children.”

“Moony,” Sirius said, “Binns is fucking dead. And he still teaches five classes a day. I don’t know what the threshold is for the ‘normalcy’ of teachers at that school.” 

Remus laughed, and a small smile tugged at his lips. “I guess…” he said. “I don’t know, it would be a lot to ask of any employer, regardless.”

“Then you could be a Muggle professor!” Sirius said, tossing his hands in the air for emphasis, blessedly freeing him of the perhaps too-forward knee-touch. “They wouldn’t catch on a wit if you had to take a day off every month. You could conjure up some physicians’ notes saying you had a... ‘condition,’ or something, and they’d have to let you stay on! Come on,” he said with a sigh, slumping a bit. “You’re too brilliant to just give in. You’d be a great teacher. You already are.”

Remus looked back at Sirius with a complicated expression. It seemed like a mixture of appreciation, sadness, happiness, and something else Sirius wasn’t quite sure of. His eyes seemed a little wetter, but his smile had grown. “......Not one of you can do a proper dive, still.”

Sirius laughed—too loudly again, apparently, as Remus leaned forward gesturing for him to lower his voice as he struggled to hold back his own laugh. “Sorry,” Sirius said, quieter as his laughter died down. “You’re gonna have stupid students, sometimes. That’s just how it is.”

Remus chuckled. “I suppose,” he said with a content sigh. “...You really think I’d make a good teacher?”

“Of course I do,” Sirius replied with a smile. “Look, you got James to become a van Gogh groupie in one day. I think you have the ability to teach first years how to not poke their eyes out with their own wands.”

Remus laughed again, his face lit with a particular brand of happiness Sirius seldom saw on his face. It was different than the sharpness of his smile when he laughed at one of their stupid jokes, or the gentleness of his content when he was at ease. It was something else, and it was elusive and flickering in a way Sirius thought perhaps he had imagined it entirely, before Remus’s face became the gentle contentedness once more. “Thank you, Sirius.”

Sirius smiled back, hoping what he returned was even a fraction as bright as what Remus directed at him. “No problem. I mean it.”

Remus stretched out his legs on the bed, their legs brushing against each other’s now as he re-settled. Sirius tried to not let any of the small thrill he felt at the closer contact show on his face. 

“What did you say?” Remus asked, nodding his head towards Sirius. “During your meeting, I mean.”

“Minister of Magic,” Sirius said, with a straight face.

It was Remus’s turn then to burst into laughter, perilously loud. 

There was a sleep-addled grumble from Peter’s top bunk across from them, and Sirius and Remus froze. A louder rustling and creaking as the sheets rustled and Peter seemed to prepare to turn over in bed—awake or still asleep, it was difficult for Sirius to discern. But before Sirius could think of a way to prepare an excuse for why he was in Remus’s bed, he felt hands grip the collar of his t-shirt and yank him forwards down onto the bed beside Remus.

Sirius collapsed face-first onto the mattress beside Remus, stilled with shock at the sudden gesture. He turned his head to the side to see Remus holding a finger to his mouth and just as still as Sirius was, waiting out the rustling from Peter’s bed. The seconds stretched on and they stayed, eyes locked on each other’s as their ears focused on the sound of shifting bedsheets, not daring to breathe too loud or move and cause the bed to creak. 

Finally, the noise stopped, punctuated by a sleep-fogged sigh from Peter’s bed. Sirius let out a soft sigh of his own, Remus following shortly after.

Remus gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry,” he whispered, even quieter than their previous volume. “Thought he was going to get out of bed.”

“Me too,” Sirius replied with a shrug, smiling back at Remus. He turned and rolled over onto his back, careful not to make the bed creak as he did so.

He could feel the tenseness of Remus’s body beside him, and the physicality of the situation became painfully obvious to Sirius as he laid there. 

Sirius was lying beside Remus in bed. 

He didn’t dare look over at Remus, and he could feel that Remus wasn’t looking over at him—the both of them seemingly paralyzed next to each other as they looked up from the small bed to the old wooden ceiling of the inn. _Should I move?_ he thought frantically to himself. If he moved would it make the situation more uncomfortable? Draw attention to the strange intimacy of their previous position? Where would he move, even if he wanted to? The bed was incredibly small, and sitting up again would only make it more likely for James or Peter to see them and start asking questions. But then, it wasn’t so strange that he was in the bed with Remus, he supposed—he was just keeping him company until he fell asleep, no matter what it may have looked like to an outside observer. It was only Sirius’s feelings that made the situation more complicated, wasn’t it? But then, perhaps Remus was uncomfortable with their closeness… he should move to sit up, just in case. 

“What, um…” Remus whispered suddenly, stirring Sirius out of his endless cycle of anxieties. “What did you actually say? In your meeting.”

Sirius blinked and turned his head to look at Remus, who, while he didn’t turn to face him, had relaxed a bit into the mattress, hands folded comfortably over his chest. He felt as if he could have breathed a sigh of relief; if Remus didn’t think it was odd for them to be lying together in bed like this, then he certainly wouldn’t bring it up. He supposed they had all fallen asleep in James’s bed together a few times. There would be no reason for this to be different. “Uh… I think I said curse-breaker, or something,” Sirius said, turning back to look up at the ceiling. “You know, since ‘wealthy heiress’ is out the window.” He punctuated the sentence with a mimed flip of his hair. 

Remus snorted again. “You know, I think you’d be pretty brilliant at that, actually.”

Sirius smiled. “Being an heiress? I know.”

Remus nudged him with his elbow. “Curse-breaking. Neutralizing cursed objects and lifting curses from buildings and things.” Sirius could hear the smile in his voice. “Could see you opening up your own business for it, actually.”

“‘Black’s Curse-Breaking business,’” Sirius said with a chuckle. “With the family name in it and everything. That’d really drive my family up the wall. Sounds perfect.”

“More than that, though,” Remus said through his light laughter. “You’d be really good at it.” 

“Yeah?” Sirius asked.

“Of course you would,” Remus replied easily. “You could be a guest lecturer at one of my classes.”

Sirius laughed. “That sounds brilliant. Though I hope you know I’d raise hell if I was ever in your classroom.”

“All the better to use a live subject to practice binding charms for defense.”

They talked together like that, side by side in Remus’s bed, slowly relaxing into the thin mattress. They didn’t make eye-contact, only occasionally nudging each other in the side, inadvertently pushing their bodies closer and closer together. The quips slowed, conversation devolving into what kind of flats or homes they would settle into after leaving Hogwarts. Sirius mentioned London as his first choice, though the more Remus talked about the serenity of the Welsh countryside, the more appealing it became. Perhaps they’d be able to find a happy medium, Sirius thought. A place not too stuffed with people but not too isolated either, where Remus could floo to work and Sirius could have a business in town. They’d be friends with local muggles as well, maybe even inviting some over for dinner on the weekends. Sirius could plunge himself even deeper into muggle culture, and maybe then Remus wouldn’t raise an eyebrow with that teasing smile whenever he got the name of an appliance wrong. It was pretty to think so. 

About an hour after they had laid down, Sirius noticed Remus’s head lolling over to the side towards his, the light hair tickling against Sirius’s cheek. Slowly, Remus’s replies became more sluggish, drifting further and further from consciousness as the night progressed. Eventually, he stopped replying all together, falling silent after another of Sirius’s questions about how Remus would decorate his Professor’s office—his head turned towards Sirius as he breathed slowly and calmly with warm puffs of air Sirius could feel against his face. 

Sirius turned his face towards the warmth on the shared pillow, curling around the peaceful form of Remus in a dreamless sleep, and let himself slip into unconsciousness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing gayer than sharing your trauma, am I right, lads
> 
> Just so you all know, the next update will be two weeks from now--we've officially caught up to what I've written, and I still need a bit of time to edit and finish the next chapter!
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed :)


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